


Winds of Change 4: Scirocco

by AlterEgon



Series: Winds of Change [7]
Category: Enchantment Emporium - Tanya Huff, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Conspiracy, Demons, Mind control (no main character), Multi, Parabatai, Rebels against the Clave, Rescue, Torture, Wings, character death (jonathan), possession (no main character)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-23 06:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 138,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15600432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: "You'll set your world on fire", Alec Lightwood and his friends had been told not too long ago. Recently returned from a foray into an alternate timeline, unable to return to the lives they once lived and uncertain of where to turn next, they return to New York, only to find that the prediction was more accurate than they could have known. Soon, there is no way for them to deny that they will do just that. Already hunted by some of their own people, they are ready to break with the Clave and become renegades for good.There's been a string of demon attacks on New York, however, and it is somehow tied to their work. In the meantime, Magnus is facing an entirely different issue at their new base in Calgary – a warlock one that has the potential of making their lives there much easier, or infinitely harder. Then, their already-tight deadline to solve the demon issue and cut ties with New York shortens even further when Alec disappears on a mission…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks today goes to my faithful betas, TanteTao and our own JC!
> 
> A big extra thank you from me to the wonderful team of the SH Hiatus Big Bang.
> 
> Jimmy - this one's for you!

April 18th, 2017

_Calgary_

"So you're going to try and chip a demon?" Allie sounded half-amused and half-incredulous.

"Kind of," Alec admitted. "Of course it'll only work if their master is in our dimension. If they just hop back into their own one, or to an entirely different one, we'll be unable to follow, or even tell where they go."

"And unfortunately, Uncle Viktor's Traveller is still broken," Jack threw in.

The Nephilim chuckled, though there was a slightly chagrined note in their voices.

"Is he still very angry at us?"

Jack's uncle Viktor had helped them travel into a different timeline not too long ago. He'd been very displeased when they had returned with a few artifacts, four tame raptors and two new companions, discharging the device entirely in the process. There was even reason to assume that, had it not been for the quick help of Charlie, the Bard who had been travelling with them, they would have been caught between dimensions and unable to ever find their way home. They preferred not to think of that part of their trip.

"He insists he'll roast the lot of you on sight if you ever come to his place again, and he's spitting fire every time he remembers," Jack informed him.

Alec winced. Since Jack's uncle was a fully grown dragon, that statement had to be taken literally. "Maybe we should send him a little apology note," he suggested. "And a box of chocolates or something."

Jace stared at his _parabatai_. "You'd try to console a Dragon Lord with a box of chocolates?"

"A large box of chocolates," Izzy suggested.

"A box of large chocolates?" Clary added. She didn't object when Allie heaped another load of sausages and egg on her plate.

"Traditionally, the way to soothe an angry dragon is to have the gifts delivered by a virgin," Charlie pointed out without looking up from her attempt at feeding one of Allie's boys with only marginal collateral damage to the tablecloth.

Meaningful looks passed between the participants in the meal.

"That might be a problem," Alec allowed after a moment. "We can't very well charge one of the kids with that errand." Descended from a fertility god according to family legend, the Gales drew part of their power from sexual pleasure. Even Izzy had learned an entirely new approach to the concept of recreational sex since they had been virtually adopted as honorary family members. It was safe to assume that no Gale over the age of fifteen – which was the family-internal age of maturity – was a virgin.

Considering that, it was just as well that the entire suggestion had been a joke.

"He'll calm down eventually," Jack promised. "At the latest when he's managed to recharge those power cells."

"Leaving aside the dragon for the moment," Allie returned the conversation to a more serious topic while rescuing a glass of water from being pushed over the edge of the table by her oldest son, Edward. "Assuming you chip your demon and you put an end to whatever is going on – what will you do then?"

No one bothered to pretend they didn't know what she was talking about. They had learned so much about the history and origin of their own people recently, and yet they knew there was much more to find out still – and then they had to come to a decision on what they were going to do with that knowledge.

"I really don't know," Alec admitted. "If we go and present what we have so far to the Clave, we'll probably be either declared insane or outcast as traitors and heretics, deruned and banished. We don't have any good, hard evidence for most of the things we know."

"We have David's journal," Clary said.

Jace shook his head. "We have an ancient journal that _we think_ was written by David the Silent. There's also the added issue that we stole it."

"We?" Alec was looking at him quizzically. "As far as I remember, _you_ had nothing to do with that."

"No," Jace agreed. "But only because I was stuck in a hospital bed being told I'd never walk again at the time. I totally would have helped you steal it if I'd been there."

"Otherwise, most of what we have is pieced together from memories and old records. The werewolf material is explosive, but won't back any of the angel-related things. The person who we know knows more refuses to talk to us. The place where we're pretty sure we could find more information is sealed and warded and not accessible." Alec glanced at the palm of his hand as he spoke. Thanks to a combination of ointments made by the Gales' brewers and Magnus' magic, the frostbite those wards had given him had healed without a trace.

Izzy put her cutlery aside and held out her hands, indicating her readiness to take over Adam so Charlie could eat in peace.

The boy safely transferred between them, the Bard started to reduce the contents of her own plate, eating with an appetite that was unrivalled around the table. The portions she could eat were at a stark contrast to her too-thin body. She always looked to be at the brink of starvation – a long-term effect of a powerful magical working she had once performed and that had left a lasting mark on her. She insisted the price had been worth it.

"And don't forget the slightly inconvenient fact that the last time someone tried to go public with the things you're finding out, it triggered a mass killing among your people," Charlie reminded them between two bites.

"That, too," Alec agreed. His own plate cleared, he offered the same favor to Graham, Allie's husband and the father of the four boys sharing the table with them – and the two who were currently causing Allie to suppress a wince and put a soothing hand on her belly.

With little Arthur settled firmly on his lap, the young man continued: "We do have the letters from Valentine's study." Those letters had been the first link they'd found that suggested that the man they had been raised to view as the enemy had, in fact, been working with their government's approval, until his planned revolt was overthrown and the only thing that could credibly be done had been to shift his purpose, turning him from the man who had been supposed to lead a concerted campaign against Downworlders presented as their worst enemy into the new common enemy of all Nephilim. "But it'll be easy enough to claim those were forged."

"We know he's had contact with the angels," Izzy said. "I mean, he might have managed to trap Ithuriel somehow to get his blood to use on Jace and Clary, but remember what Hodge—the other Hodge—said?"

They'd briefly encountered the counter-part of their former trainer in that other timeline they had visited. With his dying breaths, he had imparted some information to them, but he had died before he'd been able to answer all their questions.

"That he'd seen Valentine talk to an angel once?" her brother asked. "We could try to ask our Hodge about that. It had to have been before the timelines split. Too bad he's dead."

For the first time, one of the older women around the table spoke up. "Hodge your weapons' trainer who betrayed you, stole your artifact, handed it to your enemy and then switched sides again?" She knew the story. They all did.

"That's the one, Auntie Bea," Alec confirmed.

Among the Gales, 'Auntie' was an honorific given to those older women who were at the height of their powers. Bea wasn't just an Auntie, but the dominant one of the four living in Calgary. The fact that she'd let them continue for so long without interrupting suggested that she either thought their entire discussion was pointless, or that she was waiting for them to figure something out that she had long thought of already.

"You'd trust him to answer that question anyway?"

The four Nephilim nodded in unison.

Magnus turned his attention towards Charlie, who was clearly thinking hard. She met his gaze, and he could see a glint in her eyes. The unseen fiddler that offered a kind of running musical commentary on what was happening around her in her head must have been playing something interesting.

"It's not—I mean, I get why he did what he did," Jace said.

"He wasn't a bad man," Izzy added. "Desperate. Not bad."

Alec had closed his eyes briefly. "He suffered for what our parents did. I'm not sure we could ask him to risk anything for us even if he wasn't dead."

Charlie cocked her head to one side, listening inwards. "Do you think it'd still be worth trying?"

"What are you suggesting? A séance?" Clary hadn't known Hodge for long and had leaned back, not feeling qualified to participate in any speculation on whether or not Hodge Starkweather would be a promising source of information even if he had not been gone for half a year.

Jace's laugh was bitter. "One of the last things I told him was that I wouldn't forgive him," he said. "I don't think his ghost has much reason to be forthcoming."

"And have you?" Auntie Bea asked, fixing him with a look hard as steel.

"Forgiven him?" Jace asked. He moved his head from side to side, not quite a shake. "There's nothing to forgive. Can't say I wouldn't have done the same in his situation."

Bea turned her attention to Charlie. She seemed about to say something to the younger woman, and judging by her expression, it wasn't going to be praise for her music. Her lips parted, then closed again. Pressing her mouth into a thin line, Bea turned back to the others. "If he walked through that door this instant, would you trust him? Would you take him into your confidence and let him know what you have learned? Would you let him stand beside you, cover your backs?"

To their credit, they didn't answer immediately. They thought, silent, considering, weighing the factors speaking for and against the man.

"Yes," Alec was the first to reply. Izzy nodded, and so did Clary.

"I wouldn't expect him to have my back." Jace said, truthfully. "He said he forgave me for taking his hand, but the fact remains that I mutilated him in rage. I wouldn't require him to look past that."

"What if he switches sides again?" Bea asked, steel in her voice.

Alec met her eyes. "He did what he did because he suffered for eighteen years, for crimes committed by the people who were placed in control of him. This would be different. But it doesn't matter, does it? Because Valentine killed him."

Charlie raised a hand. "When you say 'Valentine killed him'," she said, fixing eyes suddenly gone black rim to rim on Jace, "does that mean you went and examined the body? Did you check his pulse, his breathing?" She turned to Izzy. "Did you autopsy him?" To Alec. "Did you bury him?"

"I was a bit preoccupied being dragged off by Aldertree," Jace said. "He was inside a locked cell. He was stabbed through the bars. He dropped where he stood."

Izzy was shaking her head.

Alec blinked. "We don't bury our dead like you do," he said. "I don't know what happened to the body. It wasn't at the farewell ceremony, but since he was considered a traitor, that was expected."

"Also, I think we were a _bit_ distracted that day," Clary threw in, sounding somewhat contrary.

"His body must be buried at some crossroads in Idris. That's what happens to those deemed unworthy," their leader continued. "We've tried to find out where so we could at least put up a marker in his honor, but so far we haven't been successful."

The Bard was grinning. "How about this?" she asked. "Maybe his body wasn't at the farewell ceremony because there was no body."

Jace looked taken aback. "You mean they may still be keeping him locked up somewhere? That he may have survived that stab?"

"No," Charlie said. "I'm saying that there was no body because someone came and retrieved him. Maybe I jumped out of the Wood into his cell and pulled him out and back here with no one the wiser. And who cares about what happens to the traitor's corpse anyway?"

Four faces stared at her, frowning. Magnus smirked.

"You did that? You mean you have him right here?" Alec sounded incredulous.

"No," Charlie said. "I mean that I'm going to do that. From our point of view, that is."

"I don't think that'll work," Jace said, slowly. "I think—"

"Jace," Charlie interrupted him. "It's going to work. It has already worked."

His mouth shut with an audible click of teeth on teeth.

Clary seemed unconvinced. "How can you be sure?"

"Because there was no body." Magnus sounded like he was stating the obvious. "You haven't been able to find his grave because it doesn't exist. His remains must have gone somewhere. Given Charlotte's unique powers, it stands to reason to assume that they went here. Will come here. From the past, to a point in the near future."

*

They had postponed further discussion of the details of Charlie's suggestion, allowing the conversation to turn towards lighter subjects. Caught up in their first opportunity to relax and let their guards down that they'd had in over a week, and with the added complication of a two-hour time difference, they missed the curfew.

"Lucky thing you have a time-travelling Bard at your disposal," Charlie had laughed when they'd realized that.

While convenient at times, they didn't like to make use of Charlie's special powers more than they had to. It was too readily evident that using that amount of power took a toll on her body. No matter how often she assured them that she had the effect under control, and that, in the worst case, she'd have to fit another meal into her day, they kept the time jumps she made for them to a minimum.

According to Charlie, anything that went back only as far as she could easily count hours wasn’t really any more exhausting than regular travel through the Wood. They hadn't asked her what going back half a year would do to her. Even Alec had understood that questions were better left unasked if one was sure ahead of time that the answer was unlikely to be truthful.

Considering all their options, they had accepted Charlie's offer to return them to New York in time to make the curfew.

The lack of any upset phone calls or orders to return immediately were proof enough that they were actually there already, and upon Charlie's insistence they had spent a calm evening in the circle of their friends. The Bard had also strongly suggested they spend the night in their Calgary home, sleeping in perfect safety for a change. She'd sent them off with a promise of collecting them right after breakfast the next morning.

Claiming they weren't looking forward to a long, relaxed evening in their own magically fortified home, enjoying the amenities without any worries about cameras or microphones – overtly installed or concealed – and time to rub the kinks and knots out of each other's muscles to help their bodies forget the strain they were put under day after day would have been a blatant lie.

Their plans were interrupted before they could even start putting them into practice.

"We should buy a car," Izzy was just saying as they turned the corner into Macewan Glen Drive.

"We could have used a portal or the Wood if you didn't want to walk," Clary pointed out. She'd found that her ability to place objects in paper extended even to entering the inside of a painting herself – or with passengers – and step right through to that interdimensional space so aptly named the Wood that allowed her to travel instantaneously from location to location – provided that she had a painting to step out of at her destination. There was one of her works hanging in Allie's large living room, and another prominently displayed in their own.

"I don't mind walking today," the other woman explained. "But we can't rely on it that you our Charlie or someone else who can portal will always be around. And then it might rain…"

"Of course this has nothing to do with it that you liked driving when Charlie and Jack taught us and that you want to do more of it?" Alec asked, laughing. "What kind of car would we even buy?"

"Even more to the point: What money would we buy it with?" Jace asked. "You're not using the bit of mundane money _I_ earn to buy a car, of all things."

For reasons best known to them, the Aunties had a way of getting Jace to help out in the magic store. For reasons not known to anyone – at least not officially – he actually was surprisingly successful at it.

Allie paid him for the hours he spent behind the counter. It wasn't much, but while the others also helped out in various capacities around the Gale family, he was still contributing the greatest share to their slowly growing mundane funds – which they needed, since spending Clave money from their Shadowhunter salaries made their spendings trackable.

"We get all the money from the things Mom is sending for Allie to sell," Izzy reminded them.

"That's meant to fund our travels and research, not to buy you a car," Alec objected.

"It wouldn't be my car," his sister insisted. "It would be our car. And that would absolutely help with our travels and research. You can't—" She broke off as her gaze fell on the house they were aiming for.

It sat quietly there between two identical-looking ones, with the only difference evident for a mundane onlooker the fact that there were no lights on in theirs.

Anyone who could see through a glamor, however, would have spotted something quite unusual on the sidewalk, about an arm's length away from their fence: A human figure was standing there, hands glued to a wall of sparkling green, with another sheet of light in the same color laid over its feet.

"I see my mouse trap worked," Magnus declared, satisfaction in his voice. "Did it catch a mouse, though – or a rat?"

They fanned out slightly, approaching the person caught in the wards Magnus had put on their property before they had left that afternoon.

"So David was right," Jace noted as he stepped over the charm sketched on the ground in chalk that made sure that any mundane would prefer to use the other side of the street, and not get too close to their home by accident. They'd started calling those muggle-repelling charms, just as their Gale friends jokingly did.

Magnus glanced at the young man. "Of course David was right. Did you really doubt that?"

Without waiting for an answer, he exchanged a look with Alec, who shrugged and nodded. They were Magnus' wards, and Magnus was the one of them most permanently residing in this house. It was only fair if he got to lead in this encounter.

The captive had stopped struggling. His body was twisted around as far as it would go, caught as it was, to watch their approach.

They came to a halt, forming a full circle around him. He showed none of the tell-tale signs of a Seelie, he had no Marks and he wasn't a Gale. His complexion seemed too tanned for a vampire. That left two options, and if he'd been a werewolf, he surely would have tried to change to get out of his predicament.

"State your name and your purpose," Magnus demanded, his voice imperious and commanding.

"Maurice Shade," the reply came immediately, his tone surprisingly calm and controlled for someone who was caught in another warlock's wards. "I've come to talk to Magnus Bane. I suggest you release me from these bindings speedily, unless you want to hear my message while smelling piss. You've taken your time getting back."

*

Maurice Shade kept his calm while Magnus opened the wards and escorted him – "Hands where I can see them and no movements that look like you're starting a spell" – into the building and to the bathroom. None of them fancied the threatened accident happening in their living room.

Looking much relieved, his hands held out demonstratively without prompting now, the captive warlock walked ahead of Magnus to where the other four were waiting.

They indicated a chair and he sat, hands flat on his thighs.

"You don’t need to treat me like a burglar," Shade said when Magnus waved, letting a thin sheet of magic settle on him to keep him from lifting his hands. "I won't cast a spell against you. I've only come to talk."

"If you'd come to _talk_ , you could have done so by ringing the doorbell," Magnus pointed out. "You also didn't need to stalk this place beforehand. You'll have to forgive us if we judge you by your actions, not your words."

"Fair enough," the other warlock agreed. "I had reason not to use the front door. I was hoping to wait for your return tonight."

"And wait you did," Alec said, a smirk playing on his lips.

Shade turned his head towards him, studying the black lines on Alec's skin. "You're not supposed to be here. There are no Nephilim in Calgary."

"I beg to differ," Alec shot back. "There are several. As you can see."

The warlock's frown deepened before he schooled his features and returned his attention to Magnus. "You keep dangerous company, warlock Bane."

Magnus gave a nonchalant shrug and settled on the sofa next to Alec, putting a hand on his boyfriend's thigh in a gesture that was hard to misunderstand. "The best of company. Waiting for our return does not require trying to disable the wards."

"Your return," Shade corrected. "Singular. I did not know those four were with you."

"Same difference." Magnus sounded bored. "Those wards wouldn't have caught you if you hadn't tried to remove the outer layer."

"If I hadn't removed the outer layer, you mean."

Magnus showed him a broad smile. "If you hadn't removed the outer layer without realizing it was only there to keep the inner layer from expanding," he allowed.

"Right," the other warlock said. "My fault. Now, as to why I'm here…"

A dramatic pause followed before he continued. Magnus refused to prompt him or betray any sign of impatience.

"The High Warlock of Calgary sends her regards."

Magnus' eyebrows went up. "I wasn't aware Calgary had a High Warlock," he observed neutrally.

"It does. She's not a very public person, thanks to the presence of certain… elements."

"By which you don't mean the Nephilim, since you were unaware of _their_ presence here until a few minutes ago," Magnus pointed out. He had a suspicion that he knew where this was going.

Shade shook his head. "Certainly not. That family you so recklessly associate with. You may not realize this, but they hunt and kill warlocks."

"Sorcerers," Magnus corrected. "They hunt and kill sorcerers. They know the difference." They did now, in any case.

"The warlock community of Calgary has strict orders to stay away from them. As a warlock who has settled in Calgary, you will be expected to adhere to the High Warlock's directives."

"I have no interest in interfering with the warlocks of Calgary," Magnus informed him. "But neither do I wish to join them. If you keep your distance, I will keep mine." Those weren't easy words for him to say. He was used to being in the middle of things, of being an active part of whatever warlock society he was living in. Right now and right here, though, he had a different purpose.

"You are interfering," Shade claimed. "It's known you have already taken an apprentice."

Magnus looked only mildly surprised. "He's at least three quarters Shadowhunter. He just happens to have more magic than most. He's not under the High Warlock's jurisdiction."

That took the other warlock aback, though he caught himself quickly. "If he's a warlock's apprentice, he will be treated like a warlock. And you, Bane, would be wise to play by the rules and cease your affiliation with the Gale family." He directed a meaningful look at Alec. "And restrict your dealings with Nephilim to the strictly professional level."

"Bold," Jace said from the side, "to pose such demands while you're his prisoner. Aren't you the least bit afraid that Magnus will simply end this issue by ending _you_?"

Shade shrugged. "He wouldn't. If he harms me, he'll have every single warlock in the city against him immediately."

"It appears that I already do," Magnus told him calmly. "Tell your High Warlock that I have no intention of changing my affiliation. If she doesn’t want any contact with Gales, she is free to treat me as a Gale and refuse contact with me. I will not force my presence on her." His next gesture took in the young Nephilim around him. "As for these good people – they're family, and that is how I will continue to deal with them."

"You will regret this, Bane," Maurice Shade declared, his voice full of conviction. "In the best case, they're just trying to use you to get access to the warlocks of Calgary – which I can promise you won't happen. In the worst case, those crones will murder you in your sleep one day."

Magnus leaned back in his seat and studied his captive for a moment. "Interesting that you'd put it that way. I would have thought you'd see it the other way around."

An inarticulate sound was all the answer he got to that. "It would seem that I must report my mission as being unsuccessful," Shade noted after another moment. "If you'd untie me, I shall take my leave."

A snap of Magnus' fingers released the bonds. They both rose at the same time, their movements controlled, Magnus' hands relaxed by his sides but ready to cast nevertheless, while Shade held his up with splayed fingers, still making clear that he did not intend to attack.

"One last warning, Bane," he said as he walked ahead of Magnus towards the front door. "The old women have put a portal shield around the city. There's no getting in or out that way. So if you were planning an escape by portal in case they turn against you – think again."

"I appreciate the warning, but it is unnecessary," Magnus assured him. "I have no intention of escaping to anywhere." He didn't bother mentioning that the portal block was Allie's doing, not the Aunties', and that he himself had absolutely no problems portaling in or out of the city. "Tell your High Warlock that for all intents and purposes, she may treat me just like everyone else who lives in this street – as a Gale. Farewell."

*

"Now that was weird," Alec said when they had settled down again. "And I bet he didn’t like being treated like a caught spy."

"He was a caught spy," Magnus pointed out. "If he's not the one who has been watching the house, then surely it was someone who obeys the same master. Having multiple factions show up here at the same time would be a bit much of a coincidence."

"Are you going to get into trouble for spiting the High Warlock?" Clary asked. She was treating Izzy to a head massage. They had learned to enjoy the benefits of taking care of each other in the course of the last few months.

Jace had walked over to the small bar in the meantime and was mixing them drinks – of the alcohol-free kind for the four of them since none of them were any great drinkers, and a cocktail for Magnus, strictly adhering to one of the recipes he had taped to the inside of the cabinet that held the ingredients.

"Here? No." Magnus' hands prodded at Alec, suggesting shifts and turns until his boyfriend had stretched out on the sofa, his head in the warlock's lap. "She'd have to launch a full-out attack on the house to get at me if I don't want to let him in, and he'd be an idiot to even try so close to David's source of power. And if we run into any of them somewhere out there, I trust they are sufficiently reluctant to piss off the Aunties – or Allie – to try anything. Still, I suspect I'll have to pay the High Warlock a visit one of these days. Just to make sure he understands I don't appreciate surveillance."

"Do you know where to find him?" Alec asked, sounding perplexed. He'd thought for sure that Magnus had been just as surprised as they had been at hearing that there _was_ a warlock community in town.

Magnus shook his head. "I don't. But I'm sure Alysha does. They may think they're avoiding contact, but there's probably nothing in the city she doesn't know about."

"If you go talk to him, take along Graham," Alec suggested. "That should keep him from getting ideas."

Alysha's husband Graham was a Gale by marriage, a seventh son of a seventh son and a retired assassin. He was also the only person Alec knew who could easily outshoot him, no matter the weapon. The circumstances of his birth had left their mark on the man, rendering him physically and magically unable to miss.

"I wouldn't bother if it was just me," Magnus said. "Or even just us. I know you all can take care of yourselves. But I don't want to think about what's going to happen if they find out about Madzie."

Madzie, who had joined them in Calgary earlier that year, fostered with a Gale family to keep her safe from anyone who might use her as leverage against either Magnus or Catarina Loss. Though her magic went far beyond her age thanks to her early training, her additional training at Valentine's hands and the continued education she was now getting from her new family, Jack the half-dragon sorcerer, Magnus himself and the Seelie knight who called himself Elessar, and who was the Gales' most recent addition to the ever-growing family, she remained a girl of four years. She was far too young to be caught up in any kind of power games.

About twenty decades too young, Magnus thought. He was most definitely going to talk about the situation with Alysha the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

April 17th, 2017

_New York_

"Is it me, or is it getting worse?" Izzy asked as they were approaching the institute under the safety of a glamor that kept them from being spotted by mundane eyes. That was just as well, because a group of four young people, each of them with a stained blade in their hands and sporting a selection of tears and cuts in their clothes, many of them edged with stains even though their exposed skin was without blemishes, surely would have drawn attention.

"It's certainly not getting any better," her brother agreed. "And I'm starting to think that it was a mistake to come back to New York. We'll never get anywhere like this."

"We weren't exactly getting anywhere before anymore either," his _parabatai_ reminded him. "That was why we came back."

Alec sighed. Jace was right, of course. Their self-appointed mission of gathering information and figuring out details to finally make sense of the things they had started to learn not quite half a year ago had started out promising and successful, but quickly turned into a series of dead ends, information that remained inaccessible to them and pieces that wouldn't quite fit together.

It hadn't helped that they had acquired powerful enemies who wouldn't shirk back from harming their friends if they thought it would give them a way to gain access to evidence needed to take official steps against them.

A slightly desperate move in which they had thrown themselves at the mercy of an ancient artifact had led them into an alternate timeline, from which they had returned with a number of new experiences, the most unlikely of new friends and two powerful objects they could hope to use for their protection, but nothing that would be of any immediate help for them.

They'd come back to New York after that, with only a vague plan in mind and their main objective that of being seen and establishing that they were still around after having been off the grid for nearly ten days due to their little sojourn into another dimension. That they'd stumbled across Victor Aldertree, the current head of the institute, in the process of being destroyed by a group of demons had been coincidence.

That Alec had thought fast enough to take the opportunity to blackmail the man with what information they had, in fact, found about his past, had been lucky.

Aldertree may have stood securely on the other side, and been involved in more than one attempt that had been made on their lives in the last months, but he was nothing if not entirely self-centered and egotistical in addition to that. Faced with the prospect that if anything amiss was to happen to any of the four of them – or any of their known friends – the secrets he had the most interest in keeping concealed would be exposed, he had been more than willing to request that the quartet be re-assigned to the New York Institute.

Knowing that Aldertree had a stake in their survival and relative well-being now had at least given them a small respite from having to constantly be on the lookout for another attack.

His express request to have them assigned to him again, where he could, as he had claimed, keep an eye on their comings and goings, had also taken care of another worry they had had: That, as soon as they ended their study tour, which had officially had the purpose of further educating Clary, their superiors would separate them, assigning them to different institutes and thus make it harder for them to coordinate and protect each other. They'd forestalled both that and the official demand that they end their tour that they'd had to expect after their disappearance.

Anyone giving their positions in the institute any but the most detailed scrutiny would come to the conclusion that they were trying hard to fit themselves into the positions assigned to them. The curfew Aldertree had imposed when he had first taken over the institute again several months ago continued to apply, and they accepted it without complaint.

They took the missions Aldertree and his people handed them, and they completed them to everyone's satisfaction. Their assignments weren't necessarily the most risky ones – after all, their current boss had a vested interest in keeping them alive – but they did not stand out as being far below the level of difficulty that could be expected to be handled by a team that, albeit young, had recently received a commendation for outstanding valor and even before that been known as extraordinarily capable. Three quarters of them had been, at least.

The cameras in their rooms – like everywhere else in the institute – continued to be a matter of vexation for them. Ever since they had learned to view them not as a necessary security feature, but as an intrusion into their privacy, the constant supervision turning from comfort to threat, they had done what they could to avoid them. Still, demanding that they be turned off, or even blocking them permanently on their own, would surely have drawn the wrong kind of attention.

Instead, they had agreed that they would be available for missions half of their time, while continuing to work on Clary's training the other half of the day. They would spend that time outside of the institute, and it was understood that Aldertree would let them leave on a day trip if any particularly interesting research subject came up.

Translated to their actual situation, that meant that they tried to spend at least part of each day in Calgary, where they had been virtually adopted into a family of Downworlders of a kind they had never known existed, who had expanded their horizons considerably and taught them things they had never thought even remotely possible. Magnus, after being deposed as the High Warlock of Brooklyn, was building his new base there, too.

There had just been the issue that they had had to skip a number of those trips recently – and not due to any fault of Aldertree's.

While they'd been travelling – and even for a while before that, while they had gone through a brief banishment to Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland – New York had begun to suffer some sort of demon infestation. They hadn't been able to pinpoint its origins, and so far they had no idea of how to stop it from continuing. For all that they could tell, something caused portals to open randomly around the city, spitting out groups of demons that caused as much havoc and dealt out as much suffering as possible before vanishing again – unless one of their teams got there in time to stop them.

They'd lost a few good men and women in the process, and the infirmary had rarely ever been as constantly occupied during all the time Alec had lived in New York as it was now.

His quartet had done some of their own research, consulting with Magnus and asking friends from Alicante for input, but they were no closer to a solution than Aldertree's own people were. Several times they'd had to skip their half-day trips in order to help out with containing an attack or clearing up the aftermath.

Surprisingly true to his word, Aldertree didn't demand this additional work from them, but they wouldn't let their fellow soldiers down – or give anyone else the opportunity to wonder why they were allowed to run off to do their own thing while there was clearly work to be done.

Izzy was right, though. It seemed to be getting worse – not so much in the size of the groups that appeared, but in the way they were targeted at those places that were the hardest to defend, where they could cause the greatest damage in a short time. Twice this week already, all they'd been able to do was to cover up the aftermath.

Today, they'd gotten lucky, arriving in time to prevent any fatalities. Even those mundanes injured would recover.

 

_Calgary_

Magnus took the simmering potion off the fire and put the pot down on the stone work surface of his lab, where he watched the liquid turn from a golden yellow to transparent as it cooled.

Claiming that he didn't miss New York, or his position as High Warlock, at all, would have been a lie.

The same went for claiming that he didn't mind that his Alexander and their friends had returned there, where they were exposed to all the dangers that came from living among people who did not mean them well.

He'd considered going with them, risking the wrath of his successor in New York in order to be close to Alexander. They'd talked it through, and eventually had decided that it was more sensible for Magnus to remain and take care of their second base – the house he had bought from that family in Calgary whose members called themselves the Descendants of the Horned God. They'd saved all five of them from being used as demon bait just a few months ago, which had set off events even Magnus wouldn't have dreamed of. They certainly made sure that he stayed busy and didn't have too much idle time to worry.

"Magnus?!" A familiar voice called out, muffled by the closed door of the lab and the fact that the speaker was standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the upper floors of the building. "Are you there?"

"Up here!" Magnus called back. The door flew open with a small push of magic. "Come on up!"

He smiled to himself. It had been quite a while since he'd had a real apprentice – though this particular apprentice would have been special by any definition. He wasn't the first person born with magic who had grown to be afraid of his own powers. Magnus remembered times in his youth when he had been in that position, too. He certainly was the first one Magnus knew who combined warlock magic with Shadowhunter skills, though.

Footsteps jogged up the stairs, and Magnus quickly doused his fire and wiped a few spilled drops away with a rag. Some ingredients didn't react too well to being cleaned up with magic.

"If the front door lets you in, I'm here," Magnus said, still looking at his work, when the steps stopped at the entrance to his lab. "You can just come upstairs – especially if we've got an appointment."

"I didn't want to interrupt anything."

Magnus let that statement go, though he suspected that his apprentice had half hoped that he had simply forgotten the time and was deeply in some working and unable to start their lesson. He understood the necessity to get a grip on his magic – the powers of his demon blood, as he insisted on calling it – but he still didn't like it.

"Don’t worry, Chris. I was done with this anyway," Magnus reassured him. He put a lid on his pot and herded the young man out of the lab and into the warded work room he used for larger magical workings as well as for their lessons.

From the outside, the house he now lived in looked precisely like every other house along the street, without anything that would draw undue attention. The first thing a visitor who was allowed past the first few rooms would notice was that the building seemed much larger on the inside, with several rooms that couldn't possibly fit inside the house. In addition to the shared kitchen and living room, the ground floor housed a gym and sauna with a bathroom. The first floor held their personal rooms, with suites for Alec and Magnus, Jace and Clary and Izzy, each with a small sitting room, good-sized bedroom, a study with all amenities modern technology could afford, and a bathroom that was nothing short of luxurious. Two guest rooms completed the setup. The top floor was dedicated to work, with an art studio for Clary, a music room and Magnus' lab and spell rooms, as well as a separate lab and work room claimed by Izzy. They'd come to jokingly refer to the building as their Calgary Institute.

When they had first returned to Calgary from their trip through a parallel timeline – the home of Magnus' student – the warlock had suggested that Christopher and his _parabatai_ take the guest rooms they had available.

Instead, they had chosen to move into another house in the same street, occupied by Aline and Helen, two friends who had joined them in Calgary after they'd been targeted by the group around Valentine and Aldertree, trying to torture information on Alexander and his friends out of Aline. The two women had been declared traitors after their disappearance – a detail they'd only learned about after they'd returned to their home dimension.

"What were you making?" Christopher asked as he walked into the magic room ahead of Magnus and, without needing any prompting, took his place cross-legged on the floor.

Magnus settled across from him, quick motions of his hands closing the wards to keep any magic from spilling where it wasn't supposed to go.

"Just a little something for Madzie and the other children to enjoy," Magnus said. Grinning slightly, he added: "If you work hard and catch up with her, I'll let you have some, too."

Christopher returned a smile of a much less exuberant kind as he ran a hand through his white-blond hair. "Perpetually out-performed by a four-year-old. I'm sure not many can claim that."

"She's not your average four-year-old," Magnus reminded him. "She was trained from the day she understood enough to reach for her magic, and that time she spent with Valentine after he kidnapped her was used to teach her workings far beyond her age."

"Except your Valentine actually used a warlock to train her. Our Valentine tried to train me himself." He always said 'Valentine', never calling the man what he was – his own father, who had experimented on his children and those of his followers. Having been treated with demon blood in the womb, Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern had been born with powers not unlike those of a warlock, though this incarnation of him had spent most of his life fighting that heritage and trying to avoid using it. That had ended in his banishment from Valentine's group. Raised as an institute ward thereafter, he'd been allowed and encouraged to ignore that part of his heritage.

Faced with the dangers of magic untrained and the issues of preventing any accidents from happening, he had, albeit reluctantly, given in when Alec, whom they all accepted as the leader of their little group of rebels, had strongly suggested that he ask Magnus for help with controlling his powers.

It was slow work, and the man had tried Magnus' patience more than once. Still, they were finally making _some_ progress.

*

Christopher was focused on his task of holding and directing the power his body absorbed from its environment, and in particular the ley lines that ran through the world like a network of fine lace. There was no shortage of power here, just across the street from Nose Hill Park.

The park housed an ancient site of power, long unused but still acting like a battery for everyone who knew what to do with it.

Magnus could feel that power from the house, and he didn’t even have to strain a lot to do so. In the beginning, it had made him feel a little on edge, like a perpetual hum at the edge of his awareness that he had trouble to ignore.

By now, it was reassuring to know that whatever he might have to do to help out his boyfriend and his team, the power to do so lay easily within his reach.

There was another, smaller spring of power moving through the park. The Gales, their odd new friends from Calgary, might not hold power but merely use what they found in the world around them, but their physical anchor to the ground they lived on certainly shone brightly in his perception of all things magical.

Presently, while Magnus used half of his awareness to watch his student in meditation, moving a ball of sparkling golden magic with gestures that never quite touched the bright object, he could feel that anchor move, and the power shift ever so slightly.

What was going on down there for David to draw energy from the park?

He stood, taking care to move silently so as not to disturb Christopher's concentration, and walked to the window for a quick glance.

The park lay calm and silent – magically speaking, because there were plenty of humans around, walking, running, playing games and enjoying the mild weather.

Magnus wetted a finger and sketched a design by the corner of his eye. He wondered if he would ever not feel strange doing that. Among the first things they had learned from the Gale family had been the use of charms. Designs much like – and often identical to – the Marks the Nephilim burned into their skins with their steles, they were just as effective and far safer to use. They also weren't restricted to Shadowhunters. They'd been using them increasingly – he openly and his Shadowhunter friends in secret, covered up and glamored over so as to not let anyone see.

They had stopped using their steles on themselves at all ever since they had found out that the effect of those devices came at a high price.

Christopher, who had, thanks to the addition of demon blood to his body, never found the use of Runes easy or comfortable, had slid into the use of charms instead easily in the time since they had brought him into their own dimension. Not likely to meet any Nephilim who were not in on their secret, since the last official Shadowhunter presence in Calgary had disappeared a long time ago, he wore the shining marks openly on his skin.

Magnus' vision changed as the FarSight charm took effect, his focus shifting and allowing him to see far into the park.

There, he spotted a tall man, dark blond hair just touching his collar, in jeans and a sweater that looked a little wrong on his body, looking back towards him from eyes that were black rim to rim like a demon's – or the ones of the stag whose shape David shifted into to symbolize the family's union with the land.

David blinked, and when his lids lifted, his eyes looked normal, the irises grey and unremarkable. His body had settled more comfortably into its human shape, and no one would have seen anything other than a man in his thirties walking across the grass to one of the paths that ran through the park, maybe dressed a little lightly for the temperatures, but otherwise completely normal.

Turning from the window, he noted with approval that Christopher had not broken form and continued to run through the drill he had been set, though the smallest twitch of his face when Magnus looked at him told the warlock that his student had noticed everything he had done in the meantime.

"Catch and absorb," Magnus told him.

It was the hardest part of the exercise, he knew. It went against every instinct Christopher had built for himself during the last decade, which was to get rid of the energy as soon as it started to collect inside him.

As expected, there was a pause and a hitch in the flow of his motions before he set his face in grim determination and allowed the ball of magic to merge into his skin.

"We're getting company," the teacher said, not waiting for a question. "David's on his way over."

*

Like most of their group, David didn't need to ring the bell to enter the house. A set of wards and charms, placed intricately in layers, was more effective than any combination of locks, alarms and guard dogs could have been.

The door opened under his touch, and he stepped inside just as Magnus and Christopher were coming down the stairs.

"You're under surveillance," David announced as soon as he had closed the door behind himself.

"By whom and for what?" Magnus asked. Whatever David was talking about, it hadn't come close enough yet to trigger any of his wards.

The other man shrugged. "Damned if I know. I've noticed the same set of power signatures walk past the house about a dozen times this morning."

"Power signatures," Magnus repeated. Some sort of Downworlders then, since the Gales didn't hold power and therefore didn't have power signatures, and the family's female Anchor, Alysha, had a ban on Nephilim other than their group around the city. Of course, it could still be random people carrying artifacts.

In any case… "You're sure it's me they're observing?"

"They're circling around this house," David said. "Now, I have complete trust in your ability to handle this, but I thought you'd probably like to know. Also, Allie says to come over for dinner if the others manage to actually drop by tonight."

Magnus was already adjusting the wards he had around the house as he rolled his eyes. "If there isn't another unexpected demon attack, you mean. Seriously, Aldertree couldn't have created a better way to keep them from hopping over if he'd tried."

He turned towards Christopher. "What did I just do?"

"You fiddled with the spells on the house," the young man replied with barely a pause. Even though he was uncomfortable with using magic, he paid close attention to what others around him were doing. "But I don't know what you did."

"He enlarged them a little and armed them so they'll be remembered by anyone who touches them," David supplied. "Let me know if you need any help with protecting the place, Magnus."

"You mean if I want a police patrol to drive by now and then?" Magnus was grinning broadly at David. In spite of his strange status as a part-time stag, David still was a high-ranking criminologist with multiple degrees and in some demand as a consultant by Calgary's police force.

He returned the grin. "That, too. I'm confident that we can handle this without involving anyone who would be shocked to see what you've got boiling upstairs, though. Call Elessar if you need a blood hound to track whoever it is."

"Seelie princes don't usually do tracking," Magnus shot back, though he knew precisely what David had meant.

"Their Glashtin does."

"He might also eat what he catches before we can question them," the warlock pointed out with a sigh. "I'll remember your advice if I don't catch anything my own way in the near future."

 

_New York_

"I've run it any way I could come up with," Jace said, gesturing vaguely at the screen. "No patterns that I can detect. Not in when they strike, not in where they strike, not in how many or what kind of demon. There isn't even a consistent increase in frequency. It may feel that way, but the database says it's still all really random."

They had showered and changed before grabbing a bite to eat and meeting by one of the large angelic-power-operated computer panels with their three-dimensional maps of New York, hoping to be able to find some indication of what, exactly, was behind those demon attacks.

The place they had chosen was a little off to the side, but not concealed. They weren't doing anything unauthorized. They simply didn't want to be in the way of other people who were also doing their jobs.

Not for the first time, they noticed that they were left mostly to their own devices. Now and then, they would catch someone throwing glances their way, but no one showed any overt interest in their work.

If their situation had been any different, and if they hadn't grown together as a group the way they recently had, they might have felt disturbed by the distant way in which they were treated by most of the institute. Many of the Nephilim assigned here were people they had known for years, trained with, worked with, fought with in more missions than they could count.

Yet ever since their return, they'd been treated like strangers. It wasn't a secret that they and Aldertree were not on the best of terms. The incidents from just before they had left the institute the last time hadn't been forgotten either, and there always seemed to be someone ready to remind people if they started to forget: Izzy's _yin fen_ addiction; Jace's injury, caused by one of Alec's arrows. Izzy had proven herself clean and in control of any remaining cravings for the drug, the misguided shot had been proven to have been caused by sabotage, and Jace had since healed entirely from his wound.

Still, that didn't seem quite enough for a number of people. It probably didn't help that Robert Lightwood – recently Dearborn - , their own father, had been among those insisting that they were unfit to be counted among the active Nephilim.

"We have no idea where they come from – or why, and no way to predict where they'll show up and when," Alec noted, studying the map. "But we assume that there's some kind of larger plan behind this, right? We're not just facing some kind of random demon storm?"

The others nodded.

"I'd be surprised if it was really just happening without reason," Izzy agreed. "And if those demons have a master, that's where we should start looking for a solution."

"Finding the master is going to be hard if we don't know where they come from." Clary had been throwing down a series of quick sketches while she listened. Her pen didn't still even when she spoke.

Her friend made a face. "Do you remember those trackers Imogen was trying to use on Downworlders?"

Expressions of disgust were mirrored on all their faces. Of course they remembered. Jace looked away. He had condoned the campaign at the time, during his brief interlude as the head of institute. It had been one of the things that had shown him that he was entirely unsuitable for that position, which had prompted him to hand the reins over to Alec.

That in turn had been a wise move. Alec may have been deposed as head of the institute months ago, but he remained the capable leader of their small group.

"You want to tag one of them and let it go so we can trace it back?" Alec asked his sister, following her line of thought.

Izzy nodded. "It seems like the fastest way. So far they haven't caused any more harm once they left the scene, so the risk in letting one go would be acceptable in light of the benefits it may bring."

"I'll talk to Aldertree," Alec said. "He may end up taking all the credit if it works, but I'd rather not have to steal the trackers and we really do need to get some kind of lead."

"Sorry about that, big brother," Izzy told him.

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a half-smile. "It's alright. He's been remarkably tame when I've talked to him."

"Amazing what the threat of having your crimes exposed can do to inspire cooperation." Jace's grin was reflected in his tone, though like the others he was keeping his voice so low that there would not be an audible recording of it later.

"Shush." Clary followed the sound up with a warning gesture. "We're about to get company."

Her expression had darkened a little as she looked over Jace's shoulder at whoever was approaching.

He twisted around just as Alec and Izzy turned as well, to see a young woman with dark hair approach them.

"Lindsay," Izzy sighed. She probably still owed that woman an apology for the way she had snapped at her back when Lindsay had caught her searching Aldertree's office for _yin fen_. Neither of them had ever mentioned that incident again, and she had been happy enough to push it from her mind.

She didn't dislike Lindsay Rosewood, though she'd never been someone she would have chosen as her preferred partner on a mission. As far as she was concerned, Lindsay had always come across as a little boring, always precisely in line and following orders – and adhering strictly to the code they themselves had been brought up by and only started to question recently.

There'd been that incident, though, when she had helped Jace get access to the computer while his clearance had been blocked and the reactivation stalled by Aldertree that other time he had run the institute. She must have known she was acting against their commanding officer's wishes that day.

They fully expected her to walk past, falling silent mostly so they wouldn't be overheard.

Instead of swerving, she maintained her course, stopping only when she had reached their group.

"Hi," she said, the single word sounding a little uncertain.

"Hi, Lindsay," Alec returned, "can we help you with anything?"

"No…" the word was drawn out, hesitant. "Actually, I was wondering if I could do anything for you. The way you're being treated—it's not right."

"It's okay," Alec assured her, speaking for the group. "We're fine."

She looked around pointedly, clearly taking in the distance the others were keeping from them.

"We don't mind," Jace added. "We prefer to work as a team anyway."

"If you're sure…" It was easy to see that she was debating whether to leave or to stay. "For what it's worth," she finally said, "I don't believe what they're saying."

One of Alec's eyebrows went up. "What are they saying?"

"You know…"

They didn't, and he said so. Now all four of them focused on the woman, and Izzy indicated a free chair in an unmistakable suggestion that she sit.

Lindsay complied, though not before looking around to see if anyone else took notice. She lowered her voice when she spoke again. "Right now, the rumor is that your father has pulled some strings to have you returned here. That you'd all be deruned or serving time in the City of Bones otherwise."

"I can assure you that no part of that is true," Alec told her. "But you knew that already anyway. You can look up the files from when the situation with my bow was resolved. They aren't secret or classified. If you feel the need to have something substantial – to counter any talk that is getting too bad for your taste."

The way she blushed at his words suggested quite clearly that she hadn't been nearly as certain of her words as she'd wanted it to appear.

"I really do want to help you," she repeated.

The four exchanged a glance.

"If the plan we're going to propose to find out what's behind all these recent demon attacks is approved," Jace pointed out, sitting back and focusing his eyes on his _parabatai_ , "we'll need someone to man the tracker and keep us informed of progress. What do you think?"


	3. Chapter 3

_April 19 th, 2017_

_New York_

"Did Aldertree say anything when he okayed our plan?" Jace asked as they were just gearing up the next morning.

"He said to be sure at least one of us made it back alive," his _parabatai_ told him. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think he's starting to get concerned about our well-being."

"Note that he only requires one of us to come back," Izzy said, laughing. "Are we actually going to let Lindsay help us?"

Alec slammed his blade into its sheath and slid the glamored rod he had replaced his stele with into its holster. They had just managed to undo the damage years of stele use had done to them. They weren't going to risk accidentally doing more of it. Neither, however, could they go about openly without carrying steles at all.

The pretend steles had turned out to be a workable solution. They just had to make sure they didn't let anyone else try to use them.

"Unless one of us wants to stay home to watch the monitor," he said, "it's the best solution we have. And she volunteered, so refusing her would need some explanation."

"I didn't think she liked us a whole lot before," Clary threw in. She adjusted the braid Izzy had just finished for her and stood, reaching for a strip of metal links, each equipped with a sharp spike. Her friend sat where she had been a moment before, allowing her to return the favor of braiding that strap into her hair.

They had learned about that trick during their recent stint in the parallel timeline, and continued to use it. Anyone who would think that grabbing their hair was a good idea would be in for a nasty, bloody surprise. Clary knew that one for certain. It had saved her life once already.

"I spent some time trying to figure out places where they might hit today," Jace told them. "I'm curious to see if I got any of them right."

"You did that?" Alec asked, grinning. "I would have thought you'd use the extra hours… differently."

After they had spent the night sleeping safely and comfortably in their home in Calgary, followed by a long breakfast, Charlie had taken them both to New York and far enough back to just make the curfew. None of them had felt much need for sleep that night.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do not spend every free minute groping Clary," Jace told him. He was fighting to keep a straight face.

"And what was Clary doing while you were trying to think like our demons' unknown master?"

"Putting paint on a canvas. I thought I might give Aldertree a nice large painting – as a peace offering, you know," Clary's grin was audible in her voice. If Aldertree actually felt obligated to put that up somewhere, they would have an access to his rooms, or his office, if they needed it. "What were you doing?"

"Preparing arrows and reading," Alec informed her. "Now, let's find Lindsay to brief her."

*

Finding Lindsay was not, as such, a difficult thing. The young woman was at her computer station, just where she could usually be found when she was not on patrol.

She looked up when they approached, a careful smile appearing on her face.

"Morning," Alec greeted her as he reached the desk. "Still ready to work with us?"

"Yeah, sure." She sounded less enthusiastic than she had the day before, but she did nod.

"Lindsay…" Alec leaned down to rest his arms on the desk and bring his face closer to hers. "If you're having second thoughts about working with us, you don't have to. We'll manage. I realize we're not the most popular crowd right now, and – well, if you'd rather we find someone else, that's okay."

She met his eyes briefly before looking away. "No, it's not—I mean, yes. Geoffrey gave me some shit about talking to you yesterday, but I'm not going to let him dictate what I can or can't do."

"You and Geoffrey – you're close?" Jace asked. He remembered seeing them standing together during briefings and announcements, whispering. Geoffrey Ravenflight was one of Aldertree's more trusted men in the institute. He hadn't taken it well that they had been accepted back again without any official demotion or other consequences for the accusations that had originally led to their removal from New York.

Lindsay shrugged. "Not really. I mean, we train together sometimes. But we're not _close_." The glance she directed at Clary and Jace clearly conveyed her meaning. "And he doesn’t get to tell me what to do. So if you want my help, you have it."

"We want it," Alec told her. He slid a piece of paper across the desk. "These are our phone numbers. We'll text you the tracker ID as soon as we have marked a demon. We're each taking a tracker gun, so our chances of hitting at least once should increase. What we need you to do is get the bearings of that chip as soon as possible and give us its progress through the city. Can you do that?"

"Yeah." Even in that one word, her tone suggested that she felt overqualified for the task. She glanced at the note with the phone numbers. "These aren't institute numbers."

Alec made a mental note. She was perceptive. "No. We bought these phones back last year, when we lost ours on that botched mission. We weren't given replacements at the time, but we needed phones, and well… I think they just forgot we still didn't have any. It's no big deal. These work."

They did more than work, and they hadn't bought them either. They had, in fact, been part of the Gales' welcome gifts – the Gale starter kit, as Charlie jokingly called it. Every Gale family member or associate over the age of 15 had one of the devices they called Gale phones. Heavily spelled and charmed, they never ran out of power, had reception at all times and in any location – which included Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland where there was neither electricity nor a phone network, as well as entirely different dimensions – and invariably returned to their owners somehow, no matter where they were left or lost. They also came with a number of other upgrades that made the four want to never go without them again.

Lindsay reached for her phone and entered the numbers, double-checking them before she looked up. "Alright. When will your mission start?"

"We'll go out on patrol as usual," Alec explained. "If there's an attack, we'll be informed. We'll abort and get there as soon as we can."

They had debated the wisdom of staying in the institute to wait, but figured that their chances of being too far from the place of an attack were equally high then as they were if they were moving through New York. Besides that, they really didn’t like spending more time within institute walls than they had to anymore.

It was strange how the place they had once considered their home, the safest place they could possibly be in, had turned into a location to be avoided. These days, it cost them some effort to not be constantly glancing at the ever-present cameras. There wasn't a moment that they weren't aware that they were being recorded.

"We want to do some sparring exercise after lunch," Jace added. "You can join us if you like. I still owe you that training session."

She looked up at him, surprised. "I thought you just said that so I'd unlock the computer for you."

His mouth twitched into a one-sided grin. "I did need you to unlock the computer, but I meant the offer."

The young woman glanced at Clary, who kept a cautious smile on her face. "He's a pretty good trainer," she told her. "Though between the two of us: Izzy makes for the more effective teacher."

They both chuckled, while Izzy grinned and Jace looked at his sister with raised eyebrows "I didn't realize she _liked_ being chased all through Alicante by you," he mused.

"Thank you for the offer," Lindsay said a moment later, sobering again. "But not today. I have plans. Another day maybe?"

"Another day," Jace agreed. "Just tell us when. And right now – let's hope that this is the day we find out where those demons come from."

"Where they go to, you mean," Lindsay corrected him.

Alec straightened and clapped his hands once. "What Lindsay said. And now let's go. We have patrol duty to take care of."

 

_Calgary_

Chris Morgenstern was starting to seriously consider changing his name to Gale. He'd never been too fond of the constant reminder of his heritage, the man who was his father and had raised him the first decade of his life. Since he'd left his own dimension, all but destroyed by that very man, he had found that the Valentine Morgenstern of the world he had come to hadn't been the least bit better.

At least he hadn't managed to ruin the place yet with a badly thought-out wish compelled from the Angel or an ill-fated alliance with a representative of the Seelie realm, but that hadn't been for lack of trying on either account.

Worse – after his body had been killed by the banks of Lake Lyn, his soul had found a new home in a different one, and he was out and active again, under a new identity that only few knew about. Even in that new body he was already a murderer. Chris wanted no association with that man, and shedding the name would have been a nice way to start, as far as he was concerned.

The Gales had taken him and his _parabatai_ in without question when they had arrived, needing only the word of their Nephilim friends that they were safe to have around. He couldn't remember ever having experienced that kind of absolute acceptance before, the demon blood his father had injected him with in the womb always cause for concern – even to his own mother.

Calgary, in contrast, took some getting used to. He hadn't realized how much he had adjusted to living in a world that was destroyed, the survivors few and scattered, and any encounter more likely to be hostile than not. The London he and Sebastian had lived in for the last months had been a ghost town. The country they had travelled through on the way to Idris with their strange visitors had been abandoned by anyone other than Seelie and vampires. Even Alicante, where Valentine had still held his headquarters, had been dead.

From there, they had come to a vibrant city, active and alive, busy streets full of mundanes going about their business and never even realizing that there was so much more in the world around them than they could see. The world they'd come from had been like that, once. It had been less than a year since things had changed so gravely, and yet it felt like a lifetime in his memory.

Walking down the sidewalk, he could only marvel at the lives around him. He blinked, bringing the life force of the people he looked at into focus, reveling in the bright lights. Everything he had looked at back home had been muted, damaged and dying. That was another thing he hadn't even realized until they had come here, and he had felt almost blinded by the sudden glare.

He and Sebastian still had more muted colors in his vision, caused, as their new friends insisted, by the use of steles on their bodies. They had concocted a potion that reversed the effect if taken for some time, and he could see that it worked when looking at Aline and Helen, the two Nephilim women who let them share their home. He had seen it, too, the first time he had looked at Alec Lightwood and his friends when they had come to his home, mistaking them for warlocks at first glance due to the quality of the lights that symbolized their life force. Still, he had tried to find other explanations for that, reasoning away as much of it as he could in his head.

Watching Aline and Helen grow brighter before his eyes week after week made that hard to continue.

He hadn't accepted the potion yet, and he wasn't sure he was going to. What if it would also strengthen the demonic side in him?

He had, albeit grudgingly, agreed to be trained by Magnus Bane, to keep the powers he had been born with under control and safe, but he had no intention to turn into a regular magic-user.

Sebastian had stopped trying to talk to him about the subject, at least for the moment. He had slid into his new life in their new home and with their new allies easily enough, splitting his time between the large library the Gale family maintained in the basement of one of their estates in the city, where he was quickly turning into something of an assistant librarian, and the company of Aline – his cousin, several months dead in their own world just as Sebastian's counterpart was in this one – and himself.

Christopher liked his own pastimes a bit more active, and for the moment he had joined Graham in working for the family's tabloid. The day he'd asked if they had any kind of job for him to do, the man had handed him a camera and taken him out on a mission to report on a sighting of fairies.

The fairies had turned out to be nothing but a pack of pixies, but Graham had been impressed by his ability to catch a shot that was just blurry enough to pass for use in a publication that would be read by mundanes who didn't really believe in the things they were told about, as well as a few that were actually in focus and would make it into the family database. He had become something of a regular photographer for the tabloid since then, and he found he rather enjoyed the job.

He certainly enjoyed it more than he did his magic lessons with Magnus, which everyone was in agreement that he should continue.

Presently, he was walking home from another mission with Graham, camera and crossbow over his shoulder and a glamor on to hide any gear that would have drawn undue attention.

He was still several streets away from Macewan Glen Drive when he suddenly found his path blocked by a body that seemed to make up in confidence what it lacked in bulk: The man before him was slight, and easily a head shorter than he was, but there was no doubt that he could command all attention in any room he entered. He also shone with the bright fire of the immortal races, and the sparkle playing around his fingers said _warlock_ as clearly as anything could.

Now that was interesting. As far as he had known so far, Magnus and Madzie were the only warlocks openly in residence in the city. The Gales had a bit of a reputation of being warlock killers – which was not even strictly speaking true – and they had established a very firm foothold in Calgary. They coexisted peacefully with the other races, serving in various capacities out of the junk shop that fronted their magic business to those who needed potions, mailboxes or artifacts – or yoyos, as Joe, the family's leprechaun, would insist. Never forget the yoyos.

Chris had not managed to figure out what was up with the yoyos yet, but he certainly knew a warlock when he saw one, and the man in front of him doubtlessly was just that.

He also wasn't going anywhere, and he smoothly matched any attempt to sidestep him to continue on his way.

Chris sighed. "What do you want?" He tried for a bored tone, though thoughts were racing in his head. Should he be doing anything? Was there some kind of etiquette for this? He didn't have any official capacity as a Shadowhunter, and neither was he officially a Gale. For a moment, he even contemplated reaching for his demon powers to throw up a defense. Shields had been among the first things Magnus had shown him, and he found them a lot more comfortable to use than offensive spells – though _comfortable_ was never truly accurate for him when magic was involved.

"I bring greetings from the High Warlock," the answer came immediately.

"Bring them to someone else," Chris told him. "I have nothing to do with him." He hadn't even realized the warlocks of Calgary were organized.

"Her," the man before him corrected. "And yes – that oversight has been noticed."

Oversight? "Talk to Alec if you have anything to discuss," Chris suggested. "He's our commander."

"Never mind the Shadowhunters," the warlock said dismissively. "But it's very bad style for a warlock to come to settle in a city and _not_ pay his respects to the High Warlock."

Out of habit, Chris' hand had reached for his crossbow. He decided that wasn't a bad reflex to have and closed his fingers around the metal. "Then have that one out with Magnus directly. I'm not your errand boy." He was sounding like a complete idiot, but he didn't care. He had an idea of where this conversation was potentially going, and he didn't like it.

"Someone else is taking care of Bane." The sparkle around the warlock's hand intensified. "I'm talking about you."

"I'm not a warlock." It had come out in a rush, the denial so fast that it was impossible to miss that the thought had been on his mind already.

The man before him raised an eyebrow. "Do you not use magic? Are you not being trained in the art by a warlock as his apprentice?"

"I am doing what I have to keep the powers under control that I cannot get rid of. I didn't ask for them. I would just as soon live without ever using them. My father was not a demon, I have no warlock mark. I am Nephilim and there are no Nephilim warlocks. Tell the High Warlock that she is mistaken."

That brought him a laugh that sounded genuinely amused. "Demon blood is coursing through your veins and gives you magic. How are you not a warlock?"

He opened his mouth to object, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He couldn't deny the demon blood. He couldn't deny the magic. And yet…

"I'm not a warlock. I will not submit to the High Warlock of anywhere because I do not fall under her jurisdiction. Now if you'll excuse me? I have places to be."

Instead of trying to go around the obstacle once again, he walked forward, fully intending to shove the man out of his way if he had to.

The warlock stepped aside just in time to avoid physical contact, the magic sparks brushing the exposed skin of Chris' arm in something that wasn't quite a threat.

Every instinct in him screamed for him to not let the other man out of his sight for as long as a single second, though he knew quite well that he could only achieve that by either continuing the discussion or walking backwards, neither of which was an option. Going on without turning back to see what was happening behind his back took all the willpower he had.

 

_New York_

They arrived at a run, weapons out and ready. The call had come about half an hour into their patrol, and to Jace's satisfaction, their destination had turned out to be one of the places he had marked as potential sites for a next attack.

To their combined horror, it was the one they had most feared to be called to.

There was a charity event hosted at a daycare center, with not only a large number of unsuspecting mundanes around, but also plenty of mundane children to boot.

One look around the scene told them that the mundanes had done the only sensible thing, rushing into the building and barring the doors and windows, in reaction to the fear and despair spread by the presence of a demon horde. As far as they could see, they had even been fast enough to avoid fatalities, though they weren't willing to vouch for it that there had not been any injured. They'd have to see about that later, when the attackers were contained.

Right now, something that looked like an ill-fated cross of a crocodile and a bull was throwing itself against the front door, with another three of the same kind prowling around the building, looking for other ways in.

A fifth was loping down the street, apparently looking for entertainment, while a few more were busy wreaking havoc in the parking lot. Several cars had been turned over already, theft alarms hooting loudly and only fueling the rage with which they were destroying the vehicles.

Alec skidded to a halt, raising his bow and shooting in one single, smooth motion that sent his arrow through the back of the neck of the demon that was running away, putting an end to its search for a handy victim.

With a dull thud, one of Jace's throwing knives buried itself in the demon working on the entrance before falling to the ground in a rain of ashes that cleared the view of a door that looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

That got them some attention among the remaining demons.

"Very well," Izzy said, snapping her whip once. "Time for action. How many others did they say they're sending?"

"Another two teams," Alec said as he brought his bow around towards a demon that had given up on its circuit around the building and was trotting towards them instead. "But we're the closest by far, so don't rely on them."

Clary stood ready with her blades out, waiting, just like Izzy did. Jace sent another two knives through the air before drawing as well, evening out the odds a little more. They both struck, though only one of them was deadly.

"I think we forgot to take one thing into account in our plans," Izzy said as her whip shot out, keeping one enemy at bay long enough for Jace to sink a blade into it and pivot back to receive another attack.

"What is that?" he asked, sounding barely out of breath in spite of the way he was spinning and ducking to avoid flailing limbs and horns.

"These demons…" The whip snapped into its staff shape and connected with a pointed snout almost instantly. "Don't want to be chipped."

"Yeah well," Alec returned, sighting and shooting as calmly as if he was standing on the practice range. "We can still weed them out a bit first. We only need one of them." His arrow sent a demon back into whatever dimension it had come from, just before it reached Jace.

Clary had in the meantime managed to disintegrate one and ended the sweeping motion of her blade by plunging its tip through the neck of a second that was opening its maws to try and take a bite out of Izzy.

After several months of training, they were a true team by now, each relying on it that the others had their back and each watching out for their friends.

They were sweating by the time the first backup team arrived. Those four took one glance at their group and spread out to secure the perimeter instead.

"Thanks for the help," Jace muttered.

"Probably better for them not to get in the way," Alec returned. He had shouldered his bow and switched to his own staff, the sharply pointed tips on one end as deadly and much faster to use in closer quarters. "And someone has to deal with the mundanes around. Better them than us."

They had whittled down their enemy to three now, and those three were beginning to look as if they were thinking about beating a retreat.

Izzy brought their numbers down once more, maneuvering herself into the backs of the remaining two in the same move. Her electrum weapon folded itself back into its bracelet shape, safely stowed on her arm, as she reached for the pocket that held the tracker gun.

Jace and Clary lunged forward at the same time, distracting the smaller one of the remaining demons while Alec kept the last one busy, looking perfectly at ease as he did so. He had the measure of these demons by now, and was able to keep it engaged for as long as he needed to.

With a quick, stabbing motion, Izzy slammed the tracking device against the demon's hide, just below its shoulder. She could barely hear the hiss it made over its snarling sounds, but she felt the rod in her hand vibrate as it discharged.

She moved back then, switching back to her whip and focusing on the demon before her brother. The electrum wrapped itself around the creature's throat, zipping past Alec's face on the way by just a few inches.

The demon roared in pain, twisting towards the new attacker and scrabbling at the electrum with its paws, only to shriek again when the material burned its skin.

Alec took the opportunity to whip out his own tracker gun and bring it down on the junction between the demon's neck and back, jumping away again immediately when his target flailed and snapped.

He whipped up his staff, still held in his free hand, to deal out another blow with it. He found it surprisingly hard not to go for a killing strike when he could see the opportunity.

They pressed forward, driving the demons back together, aiming to hurt but not banish.

Still, it wasn't until the second backup team arrived that their two remaining opponents turned tail and ran, quickly disappearing down a dim side street.

Alec had his phone out in an instant, typing the tracker IDs they had used into a text message to Lindsay while the other three were already following their prey at a leisurely pace.

*

They had secured a part of the training room that was large enough for them to face off in two pairs. There had been some disappointment after their chipped demons had gotten away from them, but they hadn't let it dampen their mood for long. They'd just have to take the next chance they got – and they didn't doubt that there would be one.

They had taken their lunch to Alec's room, where they had gone through the notes Jace had compiled on where he thought the next demon attacks might occur based on the patterns they had observed so far. They had narrowed those locations down a little farther, and had planned the next day's patrol accordingly already.

Right now, they were about to put in a sparring session to work on Clary's hand-to-hand skills, with Alec and Izzy standing in for the attackers while Jace paired with Clary. Their plans called for a swap of partners every once in a while, so Clary would get the benefit of working with people of different height and build, as well as different combat styles.

Just as they we facing off, waiting for Izzy to give the signal to begin, Alec raised a hand.

All four of them straightened, turning to follow his line of sight.

"Coming to apologize?" Clary asked, her voice low, when she saw Lindsay standing at the entrance to the room.

"Don't be too hard on her," Alec cautioned. "We've all made mistakes in the past."

Izzy looked at her brother with a grin. "Wise words. Where'd you find those?"

"Somewhere between being used as demon bait, being accused of crippling my _parabatai_ and travelling to places previously unknown," Alec returned, his voice completely serious. "Are you looking for us, Lindsay?" he asked more loudly.

The young woman winced visibly at his words. Wiping her palms against the thighs of the leggings she was wearing, she came over. "I… Yeah." She looked back and forth between them, scanning their faces for hostility. "I'm sorry for that. I should have kept my attention on the tracker."

"Could have happened to anyone," Izzy claimed.

After Alec had texted her the IDs, Lindsay had given them a few sets of coordinates before falling silent for several minutes. Her next message had been to tell them she had lost the signal.

"I shouldn't have even tried to answer that question," Lindsay continued. Her eyes were fixed on the floor now.

Alec reached out a hand to touch her arm. "We'll try again tomorrow," he told her. "And this time if someone tries to talk to you while you're tracking, just tell them to come back later. What happened today happened – it's done, we're moving on. All you can do now is learn from it – and that's all we ask."

"Besides, the demon would have gone even if you'd kept your eyes on the tracker all the time," Jace added.

"But you would have had a better idea of where it vanished."

According to her own report, Lindsay had been interrupted by another Shadowhunter coming to ask her help with an IT issue. Thinking she could take care of the matter in a few seconds, she had tried to explain the solution to his problem – only to find that the signal had disappeared when she glanced back at the screen.

They had searched the area of the last known signal, but had found nothing to indicate either the presence of a dimensional portal, nor any place the demons might have vanished to. As a result, they'd come back to the institute to file their report. Lindsay hadn't been at her work station then, and they hadn't bothered to hunt her down. She had sounded distraught enough during their brief phone call when she had told them how she'd been distracted.

"It's a delay, not the end of the mission," Alec reminded her. "We're going out again at the same time tomorrow. Are you in?"

She seemed surprised as she raised her head to meet his eyes. "Yeah."

"Good." Alec looked her up and down slowly. "You didn't have to delay your plans to tell us that, you know. I remember you had some."

"I did." She sounded even more uncertain now. "They got cancelled."

Izzy stepped forward, fixing the other woman with a hard look. "Cancelled how?" There was an edge to her tone that suggested that she had a suspicion already.

Lindsay made an effort not to squirm under her scrutiny. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it matters." Alec thought he knew what his sister was thinking. "It bothers you. So it matters."

When she didn't reply, Clary decided to take a shot. "Did your date cancel because you were helping us?"

There was no answer, which in itself was response enough to tell them they had hit, if not straight home then close enough.

Alec gave a soft sigh. "Look… You don't have to continue this. Certainly not if it's harming you. One of us can stay back to watch the tracker, or we can ask Aldertree to assign someone randomly."

She visibly squared her shoulders, straightening as she prepared to reply, her voice much more decisive than it had been before. "No. I won't be blackmailed." Her next words were preceded by a deep breath to steel herself against the possibility of rejection. "Is your training offer still open?"


	4. Chapter 4

_Calgary_

Charlie finished buttoning up her jacket and reached for her guitar. She had a mission to fulfill, and she was going to do it before anyone could present her with information that would render the entire thing impossible.

Time-travel, she had learned, was a law onto itself. The Wood knew no time in the sense that their own dimension did, and she could leave it anywhere and anytime, provided that she had a marker to go by. She couldn't, however, go back to change anything that she already knew beyond doubt had happened. The annoying thing about time travel was that whatever she did when she went back had already happened by the time she went on her way.

In this case, she had been able to put together the bits that her friends had told her and the fact that they hadn't been able to locate their trainer's grave and spin it all into an explanation she found sufficiently credible to allow her to go and attempt this particular stunt.

She had considered asking her husband to join her, but eventually decided against it. Dragon Prince that he was, Jack was enormous in size, and even though she'd found it easier to take him through the Wood since the God had returned to it, she wasn't sure she could afford the exhaustion of dragging him back through time once they arrived.

As it was, she had planned her itinerary, and she had a tentative plan for getting back with an injured man in tow. She trusted that the prison area of the City of Bones was never silent enough to prevent her from slipping between sounds, and she had experimented a little with weight reduction charms so as to allow herself to transport a man who was, judging by his counterpart she had seen in the alternate timeline they had visited, six feet of pure muscle.

"Going somewhere?"

Charlie looked up at Katie's voice. Her cousin was leaning in the door frame, arms crossed loosely before her body.

"Bardic mission," Charlie told her. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be selling derelict houses to those who don't deserve any better?"

"Nothing else scheduled today," Katie told her. "I had a feeling I should close the office early and come over – and here I find you all geared up and ready to leave. Do you need a comrade in arms? Or a henchman for any sinister plans you may harbor?"

The Bard chuckled. She couldn't deny that things would be easier with someone to watch her back. As a real estate agent, Katie mostly set her own working hours – a fact that was highly appreciated by Allie and Graham, since she was a somewhat flexible and willing babysitter for their growing brood of children. She had even moved some of her things into Charlie's old room above the magic shop when she and Jack had finally pooled their own things in one bedroom – though not before putting a few expansion charms all over it to make more space for them.

Most recently, construction work had recommenced in the apartment, with plans to integrate another floor into the set of rooms available to them. The efforts were overseen by Allie's best friend Michael, long adopted into the family, along with his husband Brian. The two architects had settled permanently with them in Calgary, and though they did not share the Gales' skill with charms, they fit seamlessly into their group.

The plans included having a suite of rooms upstairs for Charlie and Jack, who had no desire to move into permanent lodgings on Macewan Glen Drive or elsewhere in the city, to clear their current room for the second set of twins when the room closest to the master bedroom would be needed for the third set. Fate, or destiny, or the Will of the Aunties had decreed that Allie and Graham were to produce the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son of a Gale, which clearly required the birth of six other sons before him.

After some initial misgivings at the prospect of seven sons – Gales had girls in abundance, after all, but boys were a rare commodity for them – Allie was now firmly on board with that plan.

Charlie put her thoughts of the boy who would follow Allie's current pregnancy firmly from her mind. She had met him, that day she had travelled far into the future, leaving herself permanently marked by the experience. She didn't think she'd ever manage to confess to Allie what she knew would happen then, and she could only hope that her cousin would forgive her for it some day.

"You don't have to," she told Katie instead. "It'll be dark, dangerous, and probably utterly reprehensible – as time travel always is. But if you want to come, I'm not going to stop you."

Her cousin gave her a happy grin. "Sounds just up my alley. I could do with a bit more excitement in my life. I've been feeling a bit… underutilized recently."

"Careful!" Charlie cautioned. "The last time Allie felt like that was just before she came to Calgary, and you know what happened then! The next thing anyone knew, she was crossing right into Second Circle."

Katie rolled her eyes. "I have absolutely no intention to cross. At my age, my List has grown short enough that I won't even need ten minutes to tell you why none of them are viable options, and the last time I saw an outsider who seemed interesting enough was back when we were still in high school."

The Bard laughed at the memory. The Lists were compiled by the family's Aunties, comprising every family member of the opposite sex who was within a range of seven years – either way – of a person and loosely enough related to make a union healthy. The vast majority of fertile Gale relationships came from those Lists, with outsiders like Graham – or, in fact, Allie's own father – marrying into the family being notable exceptions. Her own List, prior to her union with Jack, had only had a couple of men left on it, along with some more who were married but kept their Lists open for those who desired children without, as the Aunties put it, "the inconvenience of a husband". She suspected that Katie's List looked about the same by now, and her cousin and friend had probably long come to grips with the idea that she would be among the many who crossed right from Third to First Circle, without any sojourn through Second.

"Ready when you are," Katie told her. "I've wanted to time-travel with you ever since you figured out how."

"You could have just asked for it."

"Could have. But I wanted it to _count_ , too."

Once she had professionally checked the tuning of her guitar, Charlie slid a few extra picks into strategic pockets just in case before she turned back to the other woman. "This one definitely counts. Let's go."

 

_September 13 th, 2016_

_The City of Bones_

They stepped out of the Wood between the sounds of people yelling and swords clashing.

Standing in a dark corner of a cell – Gale Luck had apparently done its thing again – they probably didn't even need the notes Charlie played to keep anyone from noticing them. That was, anyone who didn't expect them to be there, which was everyone else there was.

There'd been that moment between leaving the Wood and the first note sounding, though, in which their feet had made a noticeable thump as they hit the floor – not enough to actually draw anyone's attention to the unlikely intruders, but enough to make Valentine's hand jerk a bit to the left in reaction to the unexpected noise behind him.

The dagger, stabbed blindly and never aimed very precisely to begin with, buried itself to the hilt in the soft flesh where his victim's neck joined his shoulder, sliding through muscle and bone like a knife through butter. Those adamas blades were sharper than anything Charlie had ever encountered before.

"Hodge!" they heard Jace's voice scream, followed by more fighting that they could hear, but not see from where they stood.

The stabbed man had crumpled soundlessly to the ground, lying unmoving.

Charlie glanced at Katie, ready to reach out and hold her cousin back if she had to. She knew she wanted to rush forward and help the man before he bled out, but she knew just as well that they couldn't be seen by Jace – who was somewhere there in front of the cell. The last thing he saw when looking this way had to be the apparent corpse.

As it turned out, Katie didn't need to be stopped. She had frozen in place, keeping herself as silent as she could while sketching a bold _Look Away_ charm on her face to supplement Charlie's music.

While they were waiting for Jace to rescue Aldertree, Valentine to escape with the Soul Sword and Aldertree to subsequently cart Jace off back to the institute, which they knew was going to happen from their friend's account of things, Charlie heard the first tentative sounds of a fiddle in her mind.

The fiddler playing tunes that only she could hear provided an odd kind of soundtrack to her life, but she had learned to listen when it happened. Somehow, it seemed to be Fate's way to tip her off that something relevant was going on.

She couldn't identify the melody just yet. The fiddler seemed to be tuning his instrument right now.

That was a first, and it made her smirk in spite of herself. It was nice to know that even an immaterial fiddler had to do that from time to time.

*

It felt like an eternity before the corridor in front of the cells was cleared of people. Charlie had been counting heartbeats, a habit she had picked up to measure time when stationary in the Wood to make it easier to gauge how much time had passed.

Jace had been right. No one paid any attention anymore to the fallen man in the cell.

As soon as they dared, they both rushed forward, kneeling to turn the prisoner over. He was still breathing, though his eyes were closed and his body utterly limp, moving like an oversized rag doll under their hands.

His left arm had slipped out of the sling that had secured it to his chest, the bandaged stump of his wrist clear evidence that they had found the right person – even if Charlie hadn't know the face already.

The face, Charlie realized with a jolt, that Katie was staring at, just as her fiddler finally launched into his tune. She shuddered. The Beatles were not for being played by that particular instrument.

"Katie, you understand that this is not the most convenient moment to _connect_ , do you?" Charlie asked as she slipped out of her jacket and hoodie. "Hands off of that dagger."

"I'm not—" Katie started to argue, then thought better of it. "I think you need to be at least awake to connect! What are you doing?" Her hand had stopped less than an inch from the hilt. Having a dagger lodged in one's body like that had to be painful. It was probably a mercy that the man wasn't conscious, though that alone suggested there was damage she couldn't see. She tried to remember what human anatomy looked like in the area of injury.

"Hate to be the one to tell you, Katie, but you _are_ awake," Charlie pointed out helpfully. Her words came fast, but she kept her voice low, not wishing to be overheard in any of the other cells that she couldn't see, but – as expected – could hear. "It's not a good idea to bleed in the Wood. Like, not a good idea _at all_. Also, if you pull out that blade without at least an Auntie or two present, he dies because he bleeds out faster than you can plug the hole. I don't know exactly what that thing cut through, but I'm pretty sure it's blocking some of the leak." She also feared she knew what it had cut _into_ , given the flecks of red on the man's lips. Bleeding in the Wood was a bad idea, but apparently not entirely optional today. She'd just have to get them in and out without lingering.

She used what spare fabric she had to secure the dagger and catch any blood that leaked around it. "Now let's go." A weightless charm went on the unconscious man's pale skin, drawn in his own blood.

Katie closed one hand around his uninjured wrist and hooked the fingers of her other one into the waistband of Charlie's jeans. "So do you think he's going to—"

Before she could finish speaking, Charlie stepped between the moans and screams sounding from nearby cells, bringing all three of them into the Wood. She didn't stop there for any longer than it took her to get her bearings.

Home was easy. Her next movement brought them out on the roof terrace of the Emporium.

*

_April 19 th, 2017_

_Calgary_

"—live?" Katie finished, moving to cushion their passenger's head before it could connect with the concrete floor.

"I should hope so," Charlie told her. "It'd be a shame to lose him now. Hi, Michael." The last was directed at the man sitting in a deck chair on the terrace. He had been reading a book and only glanced up at their sudden arrival.

"Auntie Bea said to wait for you here," Michael told them. "Want a hand with that?"

"I put a weightless charm on him, but he's still _bulky_ ," Charlie said. "So yeah, I'd appreciate it. Try not to jostle him too much. He has a knife stuck in him."

"No kidding." Michael rose and joined them with a few long strides. Though unable to use charms on his own, he was covered in them. The family was generous in spreading their enhancements to those important to them. "Open the door for me?"

Balancing his precious burden, Michael straightened. "This would have been easier without the charm," he claimed. "Feels terribly off-balance this way."

Katie's touch bordered on a caress when she wiped away the weightless charm. She could see the unresponsive body settle more naturally in Michael's arms the moment the effect ended.

"Is he within your age bracket?" Michael asked, giving her an amused look.

Charlie's voice was gloomy. "He better be, or I'll take one or the other back however far it takes for them to catch up. We're not doing a rerun of the epic drama of Charlie and Jack."

"Let him at least wake up before you make plans for him!" Katie told her, not bothering to suppress a chuckle. "And don't jump to conclusions here!"

"The conclusions do all the jumping quite on their own," the Bard claimed. "Now let's get him settled in the guest room and see what we can do about getting that dagger out of him without killing him. It's cold up here, and the last thing he needs in addition to that wound is to catch pneumonia."

 

_New York_

It was too early to be truly busy at the Hunters' Moon, though there were several other Shadowhunters present, all using the time before the curfew for a drink, a round of pool and relaxed talk. Heads were raised when they entered, and conversations muted.

They paid it no heed, steering right towards the table they had claimed for themselves on a somewhat regular basis, and sliding into the chairs there.

"I hear you did New York a favor and took out one of those demon hordes today," Maia greeted them as she came to take their orders.

"We were hoping to do more than that," Alec told her. "But that didn't work out. We'll try again. These attacks have to stop, and soon."

"It'd be appreciated," the werewolf said. "We've been spared the attacks so far, but people are getting worried about what might happen – we all still remember the time Kaylee was on her little crusade, and we really don't need a repeat of that."

Izzy frowned at her. "That shouldn't be a problem. We know it's demons behind this. They're not exactly keeping their identities secret."

"I've heard the first complaints that the Downworlders in town don't help handle the situation," Maia pointed out. "Suggestions that we enjoy watching the Shadowhunters flail and scramble to put a lid on the situation, and that we stall them by not providing information – which, I might add, we don't have."

Looking around, Alec made sure that no one was paying them any heed. Nevertheless, he sketched a charm on the table to keep them safe from being overheard. "We know that's not the case," he said. "The Warlocks refused to help, but that's because Aldertree is shit at dealing with them, for all that he calls himself a diplomat. He blew that meeting he set up when he failed to offer anything at all in return for services – after pissing off everyone with his rules and orders beforehand. He has only himself to blame."

Maia laughed. "Aldertree would have your head for insubordination if he heard you say that."

He shrugged. "It's not going to get back to him. Besides, he has a vested interest in leaving my head precisely where it is."

Not looking entirely convinced, Maia went to pour their drinks, serving with a flourish and looking around to see if anyone else needed her services. Bat, who was the second waiter this afternoon, seemed quite capable of handling what work there was. She exchanged a look with him, waiting for his nod of agreement before she took a free chair and sat. "I have something for you, though."

"About the demons?" They all leaned forward, watching her and listening as if fearing they might miss something of relevance if they let their attention stray for even a second.

There was a slight shake of her head. "No. Not about the demons. You gave Luke some information about werewolves a while ago."

Alec's lips thinned as he tensed. The outrageous things their research had brought to light included an account of how experiments, not too unlike the ones Valentine had conducted to enhance Shadowhunters with demon and angel blood, had, centuries ago, created the werewolves they knew out of a shapeshifting type of Downworlder that called themselves Diana's Chosen and that seemed to have disappeared from the world entirely, save for the single stuffed specimen kept in a museum in Alicante. Following their commitment to open exchange of information, they had, though reluctantly, shared their news with Luke.

It had taken him a little while to digest what they had brought to him, but he had eventually decided to honor their request to keep the information to himself. Sharing it among the werewolves would have meant risking open revolt at this time.

"He was going to not tell anyone about that just yet," Alec said.

"He didn't do it easily," Maia assured him. "He also made sure we weren't overheard and he swore us to secrecy beforehand."

"Us?" Izzy repeated.

"Simon and me." Of course. Sharing the news with Maia and expecting her to keep it secret from her boyfriend would have been a bit much to ask.

Alec took a sip from his drink while he mentally analyzed the situation. Luke had been a Shadowhunter once. He had lived on both sides of the Nephilim/Downworlder divide, and he knew better than most what consequences would result if those facts became known to the wider community at the wrong moment.

If he had shared with Maia, they had to trust that he had had good reasons. Still, he wanted to know which ones those had been.

"Is this some kind of alpha-beta-confidence thing?" he asked, going with his first guess. Maia was something like Luke's second in command after all.

She shook her head. "No. It was something he heard me talk to Simon about. I can tell you he still took his time deciding to actually spill and share." Going by the way her expression tightened, she wasn't happy about that, though she probably understood his reasoning. She, too, had to be aware of how explosive those news were.

"Okay." Alec drew out the word. "So what was it?"

Maia inhaled slowly, as if she, too, had to steel herself against sharing information that wasn't entirely safe to distribute. "I met some of them," she finally said.

All four blinked at her, needing a moment to make sense of the statement.

"Met some of whom?" Jace asked, his tone suggesting that he knew, but didn't want to rely on his impression.

"Non-werewolf-ey werewolves. Diana's Chosen," Maia elaborated. "Two of them."

Silence enveloped the table for a few seconds while they let her words sink in.

"When did this happen?" Alec asked, just as his sister said: "You're sure that’s what they were?"

"When I did my internship with the Selkie marine biologist Charlie set up for me," Maia told them. "And yes, I'm sure that's what they were. It's what they called themselves. They had different names for their wolf forms and their human forms, they said they were born that way, their bite wasn't contagious, and they were perfectly happy using either shape. They also liked to play fetch. They have their own language, some really weird pack rules and they think it's silly to wear clothes indoors." Or outdoors, for that matter, though they did adhere to mundane rules of decency when in company.

It took a moment for Alec to digest all of that. "You met these people how?" he decided to start with an angle that seemed straightforward enough.

"Dr. Malan – that's the selkie – invited them," she informed him. "They came to meet the strange werewolf – that is, me."

"You never thought to tell us about that?" Clary sounded more challenging than the others.

Maia bristled slightly. "By the time I came back, you were gone on your tour and we didn't exactly have the time or opportunity to sit down and share adventures. Besides, I don't tell you about every single Downworlder I meet. That'd be weird."

"You're right." Alec didn't like it, but he had to agree with her there. She did not owe them any account of her activities or her contacts. "So they came and you met, you exchanged some information and then…?"

"Then they said they'd ask their pack leader to invite me to come and visit their pack for a while," Maia said.

Alec saw his friends' eyes brighten, and he knew the reaction was mirrored on his own face. It wasn't that they really needed any more information about the older werewolf species, but after being stalled in all their research areas, it at least felt like some kind of progress.

"We could send them a fire message and ask if they'd be willing to talk," Jace suggested.

Maia rolled her eyes. "Leave it to a Shadowhunter to be needlessly complicated. I have their phone numbers. I can _text_ them and ask." She sobered on her next words, however. "Don't rely on a positive answer. They said they had a strict pack hierarchy, they're nowhere near the top and they don't get to decide who they invite – and I presume they don't get to decide who they share wolf things with either. Their uncle didn't sound like the most cooperative person, and he's the one in charge."

"Uncooperative uncles seem to be a common theme for us right now," Alec mused, though he had to admit that Uncle Viktor had been grudgingly cooperative right up until the moment they had broken his artifact. "Would you ask them anyway? Please?"

 

_Calgary_

Charlie stood just inside the door, her guitar by her feet. All four Aunties had been in attendance, working on their injured guest. It had turned out to be harder than they had expected. For one thing, the adamas of the blade he had been hurt with fought their magic, and the tissue that had been contaminated by it was harder to coax into mending than it should have been.

For another, the man's body reacted only sluggishly to the power they poured into it, consuming energy with only minimal effect. That, they suspected, was due to the damage decades of stele use had done to him. Back when they had worked their magic on Jace to heal his back injury, there had been several weeks of treatment to counter that damage beforehand.

Damage that, doubtlessly, had never been as severe as it was in Hodge Starkweather, who had been using the treacherous device they had been taught they needed to get any effect out of a charm for twice as long as any of the group they had adopted into the family.

The TrueSight charm that had first shown them that there was an issue with their new friends to begin with had shown those somewhat transparent, being pulled from this world slowly but relentlessly. In their current patient, the simulated aging process had progressed much farther. He was probably feeling the first symptoms of wear on his body already even when he wasn't injured.

Viewed with the charm, he looked ghostly and washed out.

It had been Gwen, their main brewer, who had mentioned that she might need to come up with a more potent variation of their reversal potion if they wanted to do the man any good.

Right now, they didn't have the time for that, and they had to make do with what resources they had. Unable to heal him quickly, and unwilling to put him in a healing trance because they didn't know what would happen if his body somehow tried to _heal_ the stele damage along with the injury, they had focused on stopping the blood loss and applying what charms they could, using staples and threads of magic to join torn tissue and following up with mundane bandages treated with some extra charms to prevent infection and improve healing.

Once that was taken care of, they had continued to work to exhaustion, speeding up the repair of the cut tissue where the blade had cut deep enough to hit the man's lungs and stabilizing the collarbone – divided cleanly by the strange material.

He was lying on the bed in the guest room now, looking pale and exhausted in his sleep. He hadn't stirred once, and he didn't stir when the Aunties left. They had cut the t-shirt and light jacket he had been wearing from his body before they had tended to his wound. Afterwards, Michael and Graham had made quick work of getting the man out of his pants – stained and filthy and reeking of the underground cell – and dressed him in a pair of Brian's track pants, which were the closest they could get to finding something that fit: Though Hodge wasn't a small man by any definition, Michael was easily a head taller and built to the same proportions, and Graham's things were far too short.

The door opened, admitting Katie, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and a spoon.

"Allie says he's hungry," she said by way of explanation when she saw Charlie's questioning look.

"Do you hope the smell of food will wake him?" The Bard watched her cousin settle on a chair by the bed, arranging the tray on the night stand.

"That'd be nice," came the reply. "Though I'll just see if he'll swallow if he's spoon-fed. Even without the injury, he's probably completely exhausted. Remember how Jace said they were trying to avoid sleep?"

Charlie winced involuntarily at the memory of Jace's account.

She walked over to the bed to give Katie a hand, folding back the blanket a little to reduce the risk of stains if anything was spilled. Their guest was already propped up slightly, to make sure his wound stayed above the level of his heart.

Once she had checked to make sure the soup had cooled enough, Katie dipped the spoon in it and brought a small amount to the man's lips.

They parted automatically, though he gave no indication of coming even marginally awake.

"I guess Allie was right," Charlie observed.

Katie favored her with a brief look. "Allie is always right in these things. She knows when the people around her need anything. She always knew when you were about to need something back after the troll."

Back after the troll had almost killed her and she had spent a week in a healing trance. Charlie didn't like to think of that time, though that was when she had finally come into her powers as a true Bard. Or well… in part, she didn't like to think of it precisely _because_ of that.

"Did you do this for me back then?" she asked, realizing that she didn't actually know who of the family had taken care of her during those days.

"A little," her cousin said. "Mostly it was Allie, though. You know how she gets."

Charlie nodded. She knew perfectly well what Katie meant. Wanting something else to think of, she studied Hodge. "Did you notice?" she asked after a moment. "He looks almost like a Gale."

He did, at least if one reduced the definition of "looking like a Gale" to dark blond hair and pleasant features. He really was quite handsome, or would have been if he hadn't looked so completely and utterly exhausted even while he was asleep. The double crescent scar on his cheek did no harm to that. Then again, neither did the one that Jack sported. His was a reminder of a brush with one of his uncles. Hodge's was probably a battle scar.

"As he should," Katie said. "His name's almost like a Gale, too."


	5. Chapter 5

April 20th, 2017

Magnus could tell that something was not quite right the moment Chris entered the house. There was something off about the way he carried himself, his expression even more guarded than usual.

"What's wrong?" Magnus asked, his mind going through a number of possible scenarios already. He had spent enough time working with young and inexperienced Downworlders to know that waiting for them to approach him and ask for his help this early in their relationship was unlikely to lead to any results.

"Nothing," Chris claimed. It sounded a good deal more sincere than the same statement had dozens of other times Magnus had heard it in response to that same question. That was interesting. Either Chris was a better liar than any of the other Nephilim Magnus knew, or his own judgment of the situation was surprisingly off.

"It's just…" the young man continued, a little hesitantly, before he straightened and started over. This time, his voice sounded a good deal firmer. "It's just that I don't want to continue our lessons. I've come to thank you for the time you spent helping me get a grip on my demon blood. I know how to control the power now. That's all I needed."

The declaration took Magnus by surprise. He had known that Chris didn't like those lessons. He had, however, thought that he understood the necessity of them, and that he had agreed with Alexander's statement that he should learn to use any resource he had to the fullest – which included the use of his demon ancestry, however unusually he had come by it.

"Why this change of mind?"

Chris gave a shrug. "It's not really a change of mind. I never wanted to become a magic user. It's not – we don't use magic, Magnus. I should have stopped the lessons as soon as I knew enough to not let it get away from me anymore."

Magnus didn't bother to point out that they didn't know that that was actually the case. They hadn't had the opportunity to test Chris' control under duress, or even in a hectic situation where he might have to split his attention between several things.

He had a feeling that that wasn't going to help much right now.

"I thought the goal was to hone those abilities so you would be able to use them as a resource in your work?" he asked instead.

"That was wrong." The answer came so fast, he could tell Chris had thought about it already. "Those are warlock lessons, Magnus. I'm not a warlock. I'll never be a warlock. I don't want to be a warlock. And I can't be both that and a Shadowhunter anyway."

So that was where he was actually coming from. Magnus kept himself from sighing with an exercise of will. "Actually, there have been rare cases of Shadowhunter-warlocks in the past," he pointed out. "It's true that they are exceedingly scarce, but you wouldn't be the first. But besides that, I don't think Alec and the others see you as a warlock. Nephilim are born with extra abilities sometimes. Just think of your mother's trick with paper – or Clary's."

Just in time, he had kept himself from saying "or your sister's" in the end. They hadn't come to any conclusion about what they were going to call their relationship. They were born of the same parents, but of different versions of those same parents after all. Genetically, they were brother and sister, just as Aline and Sebastian were cousins. The latter two, however, had settled easily enough into using that term when referring to each other.

"We both know this isn't comparable," Chris insisted. "Besides, this isn't just about us. There are others who will take notice… have taken notice…"

Magnus groaned inwardly as pieces fell into place. "Did that Shade person talk to you?"

"Who?"

"Two days ago, a warlock who called himself Maurice Shade came to me with a message from the High Warlock. I told him where the High Warlock could put her demands, and sent him on his way." Magnus let a little edge creep into his voice.

"She doesn't seem to agree with that advice," Chris corrected. "Someone caught me when I was coming home from work yesterday. He didn't give his name, but he was clear about his meaning."

Magnus' lips thinned for a moment. "I'll find the High Warlock and talk to her. She needs to understand she cannot interfere with our group."

"My decision stands either way." Chris had crossed his arms, his body an image of refusal. "What you do with the High Warlock is your decision, of course, but I won't have anything to do with that. Or the magic. I never wanted it. I'm glad you showed me how to handle what I can't help having, but we'll leave it at that."

"If that's how you want it." It wasn't hard to see that any attempt on his side to get the young man to reconsider would be met with rejection right now. The best path Magnus saw was to go along with his decision for the moment. Surely Alec and the other Nephilim would have a word or two to say about that. Hopefully, Sebastian would talk some sense into his _parabatai_ , too.

"It is," Chris confirmed once more.

Magnus gave a single nod. "Then I'll get back to my work. If there's anything you need, drop by – any time. The door's always open to you."

"Thank you." The two words sounded strangely formal and not a small bit awkward. "I'll go back to work then, too."

With that, Chris turned and left, closing the door softly behind him.

 

_New York_

"We're supposed to be paranoid," Jace said. "So let's be really paranoid and go with it." He had his sword resting against his shoulder as he walked, safe under a glamor that concealed the entire group.

"We keep doing what we can to avoid the cameras," Clary objected. "And now you suggest we use them to spy on others?"

"It's a matter of making sure we know who we need to keep an eye on." Alec sounded thoughtful, but it was unmistakable that he had already made up his mind.

"You really think someone distracted Lindsay on purpose to sabotage our mission?" the red-head asked. She, in any case, clearly thought it unlikely.

Alec was silent for a moment as he pondered his answer. Izzy spoke before he opened his mouth. "She didn't tell us who distracted her and she evaded when I asked. Now, it's possible that she just didn't want us to think she was flirting with Geoffrey instead of doing her work, but it's equally possible that she's covering for someone – or that she's at least suspecting that there was more to that interruption and is trying to keep someone from getting into trouble."

"Or to keep from getting into trouble with someone herself," her brother added. "I agree. Let's have a look at the recordings at least and see what happened there.”

They stopped, turning slowly. They had reached one of the sites of the recent demon attacks. The debris left behind from it had been cleared up, the scene long released by the mundane police by now.

Sketching charms on their eyelids, they turned. Most demon traces disappeared quickly, but some lingered under the right circumstances, leaving tracks that could be followed. There would have been other Shadowhunters examining the scene before, the reports containing no indication of anything usable.

Those other Shadowhunters would have used runes, however, without the benefit of the broader application that the Gale charms allowed them. With their new knowledge, they could specify, amplify and direct effects, hopefully enabling them to extract information from their surroundings that they couldn't have gotten simply by activating a rune that would show them random demon signatures.

"And how are we going to get at them?" Clary continued. "It's not like they're just open for anyone to view, are they?"

"We grew up in that institute," Alec reminded her. "We know it inside-out. We can find a place from where we have access."

"We just need to make sure that we won't be seen while we do it." The grin on Jace's face suggested that he would greatly enjoy cutting out one or a few of the surveillance cameras once again.

Clary gave him a look that was absolutely unconvinced. "Right. Because no one will suspect us behind that?"

"They can suspect all they like," Izzy said. "As long as they don't have any evidence. And as long as Aldertree relies on it that we keep his little murder spree secret, he's not going to try very hard to find that evidence." She walked a few steps away from them and slowly pivoted, scanning the sidewalks and the darker corners along the houses lining the street. "I don't think there's anything left here to find. Shall we move on to the next?"

Alec nodded as he pointed down a small alley. "Let's take the back way. It'll be shorter and faster, and less risky."

The glamors kept them concealed from sight, but they did nothing to hide the sounds they made. He, Jace and Izzy could talk while glamored by using signs instead of words, but Clary had only started learning those and was far from fluent. Taking a less well-travelled route would allow them to continue their conversation while they walked.

They were progressing at a quick jog, avoiding a full-out run that would have risked collision with mundanes who didn't see them if they suddenly stepped out of a building or a junction, but making better time than they would have if they had kept to a walking pace.

"Whoa!" Jace said, skidding to a halt, when they had covered about two thirds of the distance to their next destination. "Did you see that?"

He backtracked his steps to the last branch of the street, glancing down between the houses.

Alec followed his example, blinking at the flashes of color that marked tracks along the concrete walls and the pavement.

"Not from our demons," Izzy noted as she joined them. "These are fresh tracks."

"So we ignore them?" Clary asked, standing uncertainly behind them, one hand on her blade.

"Nope," her friend told her. "Still demon tracks, and demons still have no business being here. I think we follow."

"We follow," Alec agreed. "Jace, is this way leading to one of your potential next locations by any chance?"

Jace didn't even need to glance at his GPS to answer. "Theater hosting a special afternoon performance of some fairy tale. Plenty of unsuspecting and inappropriately happy mundanes around."

The common factor between the attacks that he had found had been just that: they struck where there was a confluence of positivity to be turned into horror.

With one last look at each other, the quartet started to run, sparing only fleeting glances for the tracks to make sure they were still following them, and otherwise going where Jace directed them.

They could hear the battle sounds before they came into view of the location. The last section of their path had them weaving and diving between mundanes racing the other way.

Weapons out, they rushed out of the alley, finding themselves looking at a small horde of tentacled demons engaged by another patrol team.

"They were supposed to call us in for backup as soon as they spotted anything," Izzy groaned.

"Maybe they didn't have the time," her brother suggested.

"How much time does it take to call in backup?" Jace asked. "Maybe they didn't feel like calling in _those four_."

The look Alec gave him said that, in spite of his words, he was quite certain that his _parabatai_ had the right idea.

They moved again, following their leader's indications and spreading out to come at the demons from different directions, forcing them to divide their attention and spread their attacks out instead of pressing in on the four who stood close together, working hard to keep them from driving them apart.

Two of the four Nephilim on site were bleeding already, their movements visibly hampered by wounds.

Alec shot two arrows in quick succession, targeting one at a demon at the front of the fray when he was sure he wasn't going to hit any of their colleagues, and the second at one that was off to the side, apparently waiting its turn. Jace stopped only for as long as it took him to send a knife into another one of the creatures before he dashed forward again to take his appointed place between the two women, his blade a blur in the air already.

Izzy's whip was deadly when it hit in the right spot, though she limited herself to severing appendages, thus reducing the number of concurrent attacks. That didn't need quite as accurate a hit, and it enabled her to sway the odds more towards their side than trying to make every strike fatal would have.

One tentacle brushed against Clary as she lunged forward, blade extended, to dispatch of one of the enemy. A red line blossomed across her cheek and down the side of her neck, continuing in a gouge through her leather armor that went through to the clothes she wore beneath and bit into skin again in two places. The sides of those demon limbs were razor-sharp.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she forced her mind to stay on her work, stabbing, slicing and hacking until she could sink an adamas tip into a demonic core and banish the strange creature in front of her. She didn't allow herself to think of the blood running warmly across her skin. They'd take care of that later.

With a vicious snarl, she abandoned herself to what her friends called battle high, letting what training she had and instinct take over. She stopped counting strikes and kills, relying on it that she wouldn't get into the way of her own companions and that she wouldn’t accidentally hit any of them.

Alec stayed where he was, firing arrow upon arrow. He had the best chance of picking off the demons without being hit in return, and he was going to use it.

One of the other team was on his knees now, his blade on the ground and one hand pressed to a gushing wound on his upper arm. The other three had moved closer together, though they lacked the easy way in which the styles of Alec's team interlocked.

None of them spared a thought for the tracker guns they carried once again. There was no space for that now, and these weren't demons they could let go, even if it was only to track them to their lair. The crumpled heaps of bloody rags on the ground that had once been mundane theatergoers spoke a clear language.

*

The last demon fell to ashes, and Izzy snapped her bracelet back onto her arm, just as Jace sheathed his sword. Clary stood, panting, the blade in her hand pointing to the ground. She looked fierce, with blood smeared across her features and leaving stains on her jacket.

As Izzy studied her, trying to gauge the severity of her injuries – she had acquired several more minor cuts in addition to the first, larger one, as they all had – she could see her start to tremble in reaction to the adrenalin leaving her body and the pain return.

"I've got this," Jace said, moving closer to Clary and reaching out with one hand to turn her towards him. He inclined his head, indicating where he wanted Izzy to look.

She moved accordingly, to where the other four shadowhunters were. They, too, were all bloodied now, two of them apparently caught in a heated discussion while the third watched. The last of their group was still on the ground, fumbling with his stele as he tried to stop the flow of blood from his arm. He looked dangerously pale already, swaying even while on his knees.

Already walking forward, Izzy glanced at her brother.

He nodded and threw a 'go on' sign her way when he caught her look. His bow was back on his back, and his other hand was holding his phone to his ear. Most likely, he was calling for a clean-up team and some medics.

Izzy dropped to one knee by the injured man, not caring about his blood on the ground. She reached for the stele in his hand. "Let me," she suggested.

He raised his head, their eyes meeting for a moment. She saw only gratitude there, when she had half expected to be met by either misgivings because they hadn't come in any faster or the ill-concealed hostility quite a few from their institute showed them when required to work with them on close quarters.

The man before her had been with the New York Institute for as long as she could remember. Ian Underhill was a quiet, unassuming man but a capable officer. As far as she knew, he often kept to himself in the institute. She'd been out on patrol with him a few times back when she had been newly cleared for field duty as a girl, and she remembered him as a kind and patient teacher.

Other than that, there was surprisingly little that she knew about him.

She swiped his stele over his _iratze_ rune. Much as she hated using the device on anyone, keeping him from bleeding out right there and then had to take precedence over the potential long-term damage – damage that they knew for a fact to be reversible.

Underhill had clasped his hand back to his arm. He clenched his teeth to keep in a groan when his healing rune was activated, though it did little to slow the flow of blood or change the fact that his arm was hanging limp by his side. The wound, it seemed, was beyond a simple _iratze_.

Thinking quickly, Izzy tried to gauge how much blood he had lost already, and how much time was likely to pass before they could get him to the infirmary, where he could get proper treatment with more potent runes and some fresh blood.

A glance towards Alec showed her that he was still on the phone. Underhill's team continued their debate. It seemed they hadn't even realized the extent of their fourth man's injuries yet.

Izzy drew her dagger and sliced through Underhill's sleeve, half-cutting, half-ripping the fabric from the larger part of his garment. Then she tapped his fingers. "Let me see that wound."

He lifted his hand, giving her a view of a deep, ragged hole. She could see splinters of bone at the bottom of it.

Wadding up the fabric she held and pressing it to the wound, she reached for his wrist with her other hand, checking to see if there was still enough blood flow in the limb to find a pulse. Feeling how cold his skin felt against her fingers, she was sure immediately that she would have a hard time finding one.

With that in mind, she finally came to a conclusion. She didn't know when the medics would arrive, and none of the people around her were paying her any heed.

She moved quickly, lifting the improvised compress and touching his arm as if examining the wound in more detail. Her fingers dashed across it as she left the shapes of a charm in his blood. For the moment, she was glad she lacked the detailed anatomical knowledge and tissue-mending skills the Aunties had. She would have been very much tempted to do more than the temporary fix that would hopefully suffice to preserve both his life and his arm.

As soon as the design was finished, she pressed the remains of his sleeve back on. She was just thinking about what she could use to tie it in place when the edge of a scarf was dangled above her hand.

"Thanks," she said as she took it from Clary. Her friend's face was still blood-smeared, but as far as she could see from the quick glance up at her, the cut had closed up and all but disappeared. Jace stood behind her, his own cuts healed as well.

"What do you think you're doing?" came a sharp voice from the side.

So the other three had finally realized she'd come over and started working on their fourth team member.

"You have no business acting as a medic here! You—"

"Watch it!" Alec was walking over to join them as well now, his phone off his ear but still in his hand. "From what I saw, you were too busy arguing to even realize someone needed help. You can explain how that happened to the head of our institute when we get back." His voice cooled off a number of degrees, turning downright icy. "Right after you explain to him why you didn't obey your orders and call us in when you found the demon activity."

 

_Calgary_

"The medics were a bit surprised about the amount of blood he had lost in combination with the lucky coincidence that the largest blood vessels weren't torn," Izzy finished her account for the Gales' benefit later that day. "But with the amount of damage done to his arm, they ended up just rolling their eyes at his team a bit for not bandaging him up sooner. They're confident he'll keep the arm, though it'll be a while before he'll use it again."

"Lucky thing he had you there," Bea noted. "I hope he appreciates it."

"I hope he doesn't," Izzy returned. "I made sure he didn't see the charm. I'd rather he knows exactly as much as the medics. We aren't ready to explain to anyone about charms."

Allie turned from her position by the stove. She was frying sausages for dinner, stopping every once in a while and seemingly listening to something that only she could hear.

They were very familiar with that effect. It meant she was keeping an eye, or an ear, on something or someone, somewhere in the city. Anchored to it in the way she was, she had the power to sense whatever was going on, and the power to nudge things into the right direction if they needed a suggestion of where they should be going.

"I hope the rest of his team didn’t get off easily," she said.

"Aldertree was busy yelling at them when I left the debriefing," Alec told her. "I don't know if he got all cordial and nice the moment I was out of earshot, but at least for as long as I could hear him, he was convincing."

He and Magnus had settled in one of the armchairs in the large central room of the apartment that combined kitchen, dining room and living room in one. They had the trick of folding their bodies against each other to fit on the single seat perfectly down to an art by now.

"We have news, too," Gwen, the other auntie in attendance at the moment, informed them, changing the subject quite suddenly.

Alec's voice was cautiously apprehensive as he answered. Nothing the aunties did or said ever seemed to be entirely straightforward, and news announced by one of them could go virtually any direction. "What kind?"

"Charlie did her thing and was successful," Bea answered in Gwen's place. "As evidenced by the prime example of masculinity sleeping in the guest room."

They froze as the words sunk in and they realized what –and whom – exactly she meant.

"There's just one issue," Gwen continued, her words sending a cold shudder down Alec's spine. The Aunties saw issues with only very few things.

Seeing that the others were listening intently, but unwilling to be the first one to ask, while Gwen was clearly not going to be any more forthcoming without being prompted, he sighed softly. "What is the issue, Auntie Gwen?"

"He's sleeping."

Alec blinked. How was that an issue? They hadn't been getting anywhere for so long – they hadn't seriously expected to ever have an opportunity to question their former trainer about the matters they thought he might have known about. What difference would it make if they waited for him to sleep off the exhaustion of a stay in the prisons of the City of Bones? He remembered quite well how exhausted Jace had been after his return from there.

"He kept himself awake as much as he could during the days before that attack," Jace pointed out. "He must be exhausted."

"It's not that." Allie had that listening look to her even while she was talking to them. "He really should have come around at least briefly at some point today, but he hasn't. He's not showing any signs at all of coming even marginally awake. There's something wrong with him, and we can't pinpoint what it is."

By which she probably meant that not even _she_ could pinpoint what it was, and that clearly bothered her.

"He's only been in Calgary for a few hours," Magnus pointed out. "It stands to reason he's not part of the city mesh you connect to yet."

Alec felt himself smile as he realized that his boyfriend had had the same thought.

"It's not that," Allie told them. "I can tell you when he's getting thirsty, or hungry, or other things. But I can't reach his mind to nudge him out of wherever he is hiding. It's almost like that time when we first met you." She looked at Izzy as she said that. She had been the first of them to be rescued by the family at the time.

Izzy, about to start setting the table, stopped and looked back at her. "Charlie got me out at the time."

"Along with a potion," Gwen added. "But that was because you'd been poisoned and spelled. We know neither of those things happened to him."

"Do we?" Jace asked from where he and Clary were sitting on the floor, playing with Arthur and Adam. "We know the Silent Brothers were using some kind of mind control on the prisoners. We don't know there's not some kind of mechanism involved that keeps them non-functional if they somehow make it out of the cells."

"You were perfectly functional when you came back," Alec pointed out.

"I wasn't technically sentenced yet," Jace reminded him. "As far as we know, they were still debating what to do with me when Valentine attacked."

Allie flipped the sausages in her pan. "Charlie thought maybe some familiar voices could help call him back."

"Alysha thinks you should try to do that in time for dinner," Bea informed them drily.

"Thank you, Auntie Bea." Alec's voice was perfectly pleasant. "I think we understood that."

He straightened, slowly unfolding his long frame from the armchair and from Magnus. Izzy turned to join him. "Jace, Clary – are you coming?"

"I don't know." Jace was reluctant to leave his post, while Clary had already jumped to her feet. "I'm probably the wrong person to try that. If anything, I'll drive him in even deeper."

"You should come along most of all," Izzy disagreed. "Maybe he needs to hear that you changed your mind about him. Come on, Jace."

Graham abandoned his laptop on the sofa table and came over to sit down with his sons. "Go along, Jace. I'll take over here for a while."

The way he was moving clearly suggested that Jace was doing so against his own better judgment. Still, he joined the others on their trek to the guest room.

The room looked no different from back when Alec and Magnus had resided there for a couple of weeks. The bed was now occupied by the unmoving figure of Hodge Starkweather. His head had fallen sideways against the pillow, exposing part of the deactivated Circle rune above the bandage that covered his shoulder. While it should have looked only like a scar in its current state, it stood out starkly against the paleness of his skin. Even without Allie's information, and even without the white wrappings, which showed the beginnings of a stain where blood was seeping through, it would have been clear that the man was not well.

"Hodge," Alec said, stepping close to the bed and studying him carefully. "It's me – Alec. Izzy is here, and so are Clary and Jace. We need you to wake up now. We have a few things we need to ask you."

Was there a ghost of a reaction? He wasn't sure. Staring down at the sleeping face, Alec thought there had been a twitch to it, the slightest flutter of eyelids. Most likely, that had been wishful thinking, however, and even if it hadn't been, the moment was gone as quickly as it had come, and there was no further indication that Hodge had even registered any familiar presence in the room.

Izzy lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, reaching for the man's remaining hand. "You're safe, Hodge," she told him, putting all the conviction into her voice that she could find. "You're among friends. We aren't going to send you back there – ever."

His hand lay in hers, limp and unmoving.

Jace had stopped a step away from the bed. "Look," he said, filling the silence that followed Izzy's statement. "I understand if I'm the last person you want to talk to again, ever. But I just wanted you to know that – what I told you in the City of Bones – I've learned better since then."

"Things have changed so much," Clary added. She had stepped forward to stand next to Alec. "We could really use your help again."

They all waited in silence then, watching and hoping.

By the time Allie called them back for dinner, they were sure of one thing: They hadn't managed to get through to Hodge in the least.


	6. Chapter 6

_New York_

This time, they had made curfew.

They had showered, changed and, skipping dinner, retreated to the library, where Clary continued to work on her Latin while the others made themselves comfortable with a choice of old books. If their suspicion about the direct purpose of those demon attacks was right, maybe they could find out the underlying reason for them. What creatures were able to use a change of emotional energy – and what might they use it for?

The table they had picked was littered with notes and open books, post-it notes with scrawled references to page numbers and comments written in three different hands.

It was several hours before Alec rose, stretched and looked around.

Most of the other people who had shared the room with them had left by now, with only two of the other tables occupied anymore – one by an intern who had fallen asleep over his research, and one by an older woman who seemed to be determined to finish the tome she was studying before she went to sleep.

"Let's continue this tomorrow," he suggested, his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping boy or disturb the lone scholar.  "Izzy, can you take the notes?"

His sister nodded, already fishing their markers from between the pages of the books and making notes on what pages they had been targeted at. They weren't going to leave anything in the library that could be tracked to them, and they didn't think it wise to remove these books from the room either.

Clary, who had ceased her Latin work a while ago and joined them, stacked the books that were cleared to be returned to the shelves, while Alec and Jace carried them back, trying to remember where they had taken them from precisely. They left repelling charms inside the covers, hoping that they would keep anyone who might come past these shelves from picking up any of the books they had used. Their research wasn't forbidden, or secret, or even particularly unusual, given the current issues in their city, but they didn't fancy coming back to some unpleasant surprise the next day.

As they had found during their recent extensive research work, Izzy and Jace had the best knack among them for putting order into fragmented information and combining it into something that was more helpful than its individual pieces. She slid the notes into a folder that went into her bag and cast around one last time, making sure nothing had fallen to the floor.

Satisfied that they had left their work place as close to the same condition as they had found it in, they left, moving silently to the door. The soft carpet helped muffle their steps. They made it out into the corridor before Izzy allowed herself a giggle. "Poor boy will be stiff and sore in training tomorrow from sleeping like that. Maybe we should have been nice and sent him to bed."

"Nah," Jace disagreed. "I know I've spent quite a few nights in the library that way. He'll live, and learn. Also, it's good training: Sleep anywhere, in any position, and do your work the next day no matter what."

"You mean we've done him a favor by helping him prepare for the next time he's sent to hunt early-morning demons in an ancient library?" Alec asked, grinning.

By unspoken consent, they turned down the corridor the way that led to their quarters, only to turn again at the next branch.

"Where are we going?" Clary asked.

"I don't know where you all are going," Jace returned, "but I'm going to do some more research – on the computer. I just want to use an access panel that's not where I'll disturb those trying not to fall asleep on their night shift."

"We'll come along and make sure _you_ don't fall asleep over the computer then," Alec told him decisively. "You're too old to sleep like that and do duty the next morning."

"Old?" Jace shot back. "My official age has changed so often recently, I haven't been so good at keeping track of it – but the way I remember it, you're still a few months my senior according to current knowledge."

"I didn’t have a back injury recently," Alec pointed out.

Jace made a face. "Fully healed. That way." He pointed for Clary's convenience.

*

The place they went to was a small room, barely more than a broom closet, in a section of the institute that felt abandoned, even when taking into account that the corridors were mostly empty anyway due to the time of the night. The door required an access code instead of a stele swipe. They typed quickly before waiting with baited breath to see if the lock would disengage.

"Yay," Alec said quietly when the door swung open under his hand. "No one's changed it."

They filed inside. There wasn't much there, other than a single work station with a chair in front of it, and some boxes stacked against the far wall.

Jace flipped the light switch and pointed at the ceiling. "One of the very few places in the institute where you won't find any cameras. They didn't seem to think it was worth installing one here."

"What is this place?" Clary wanted to know.

"Access point for the technical staff," Izzy told her. "It overrides a lot of security levels, which is why you can't get at it with a stele – steles can be stolen, you know."

"Yeah," Alec said, the look he gave her clearly stating that he was thinking of the time when Izzy, Jace and Clary had stolen _his_ stele in order to remove the objects he had locked in his safe. "So they use number codes, which would be a whole lot more effective if they changed them once in a while, because I'm pretty sure half the institute knows these."

"I don't know." Jace pulled over one of the crates and sat down on it, waving for Clary to join him. "Maybe it's really just those who grew up here and spent too much time out of their beds and out of their rooms prowling the corridors and playing at Shadowhunters on mission when they were kids – and their adopted brothers whom they so nicely took into their confidence."

They laughed.

"Maybe," Alec admitted. "But I'd be surprised." His hands flew over the computer access panel as he typed in another string of numbers before hitting enter and watching the screen go black for a moment before it showed him a command line.

"Now… let's hope I remember how this worked." He started typing, slowly at first but then with increasing confidence. The screen split, the command line moving to the bottom while the top divided again at another input. Then one field flashed through a few images and finally settled on a feed of an empty corridor.

Clary craned her neck to see. "What is that for?"

"The feed of the camera at the last junction," Alec said. "If anyone comes down here, I'll make sure we're looking for something entirely different than what we're actually doing."

He tapped the blank square and started typing again.

A few seconds later, they had a second feed – this one showing the central room that included Lindsay's desk.

Swiping his finger across the screen, he switched between cameras until he found one that gave them a good view of her work station, now abandoned and empty.

He switched back to the keyboard to call up the archived contents, moving back to the time they had been fighting the demons.

The recording now showed Lindsay at her desk, periodically glancing at the phone she had placed before her. Alec folded his hands, waiting, while Izzy leaned against the backrest of his chair.

"There," Jace said when the woman on the screen reached for her device and typed something on it. "That must have been your text."

They watched in silence as Lindsay turned towards her own computer and entered something in it, presumably to activate the tracker. She alternated between phone and screen for a few minutes, checking and sending new coordinates.

Then, just after the third message from her, the video flickered, blacking out and reappearing a few times. When it steadied again, the time code suggested that several minutes had passed. Lindsay was just picking up the phone to call someone.

Rewinding and letting the video run once more brought the exactly same result.

"Seriously?" Alec asked, staring at the screen. "The precise section we wanted to see is _gone_?"

"What a strange coincidence," Jace declared, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I wonder how that could happen."

Clary was frowning at the screen. "What do we--?" she began.

"Cut the feed!" Izzy said suddenly, prompting a reflexive movement of Alec's hand as he pushed a button that shifted the prompt section to where the recording had played a moment before.

Only then did he glance over at the other part of the screen to see what was going on in the corridor.

He did so just in time to see a figure walking out of the picture, moving slowly and, as far as he could tell in the few steps before the person moved out of the camera's range, a little unsteadily.

"Underhill," Jace said, a hint of hostility in his voice. "What's he doing out of the infirmary?"

"Do you want to go out and ask him?" Alec returned. "You can, you know. He's going to come past here in a few—" He broke off at the sound of the access panel outside the door. Someone was entering the code again.

Jace smirked. As it seemed, they weren't going to have to leave the room to ask him. He was coming right here. His hand rested on the hilt of his dagger casually, as if there purely by accident. Alec had taken the same posture. Izzy moved a step sideways, giving herself space to unfold her electrum whip if she had to while cutting off the lights. Alec turned off the screen.

They didn't seriously expect Underhill to attack them. Even after treatment by the medics, he had to be weakened from his wound, and unless something unforeseeable had happened in the meantime, he had only one usable arm. Still, it felt better to be prepared.

The door opened with the slightest hiss, and Underhill stepped through, fumbling for the light switch with his good hand.

He froze at the sight of the four, expectantly looking at him.

Alec greeted him with mutely raised eyebrows. The others merely watched.

"What are you doing here?" The older man asked. He was pale and looked tired, the signs of pain evident in his features. His right arm, bandaged and splinted, rested in a sling.

"We were going to ask you the same," Alec replied. "Aren't you supposed to be in the infirmary?"

"I don't like the infirmary," Underhill told him. It sounded perfectly honest. "I left as soon as I could stand and walk without falling over. They weren't going to do anything other than let me lie in bed and wait to recover from the blood loss anymore, and I can do that in my own room just as well."

"I didn't realize you were living in a tech node," Jace told him drily. "Really, you should talk to Aldertree about some better lodgings."

Underhill's lips twitched. "Is there a point in offering you that I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me?"

"Maybe. Depends on what you're doing here," Alec said. "Though to be honest, we don't mind if you tell on us." Technically, there wasn't any rule against using that computer – provided that one had the access code, which they clearly did. How they'd gotten it was hardly a matter so important that someone would try to get it out of them under the Soul Sword, and both Alec and Jace had been the head of the institute at one point. It stood to reason that one or both of them had found it a good idea to familiarize themselves with those parts of the institute that most residents never needed.

"It's a personal matter," Underhill said. He sounded defensive. "And not that important… I'll just leave and let you get on with your work."

"Wait," Izzy said, moving forward as if ready to block his way. "How does a personal matter require a tech node?" She frowned slightly as she thought. "You weren't going to play some prank on those idiots who were too busy arguing over who rushed at the demons with the wrong weapon to bandage you up?"

Underhill hesitated. "Was that what that was about?"

"Roughly," Izzy told him. "How's the arm, by the way?"

Her words made him reach for it automatically with his free hand. Even that slight contact led to a visible wince. "Hurts," he admitted. "They think I may need to go to Alicante to have it fixed, but they want to see how the healing progresses before they order me a portal."

He suddenly looked very tired, as if exhaustion had caught up with him the moment he remembered his condition. Alec stood up from the desk chair. "Sit down for a moment," he suggested. "You're about to fall over."

The older Shadowhunter shook his head. "No, it's—I really need to leave. I have to—I should go to my room and lie down."

They didn't bother to point out that he should have been there, lying down, all this time.

"I'll walk you home," Izzy declared. "If you collapse in the corridors, it'll be morning by the time someone finds you."

"I won't." He made an effort to sound firm, though it was graced with limited success. "It's not that far."

"You'd be more credible if you weren't already swaying on your feet," Jace noted. "I'll go if you're afraid you might be accused of improper conduct if you're walking alone with a woman at night."

"What?" Underhill sounded utterly shocked at the suggestion. "No—That's not—I'm not—I really can manage!"

Alec was frowning now. What was it that the man was trying to hide? What had he been up to in his condition? He wished they could have given him one of the Gales' truth charms.

He was still trying to decide on what to say when the familiar bleeps of the door panel sounded once again, and Underhill froze. If he had been pale before, he went downright transparent now.

"I think that question is about to answer itself," Jace said. One smooth motion brought him to his feet and to the side of the door. Alec reached out to pull Underhill out of the way, who didn't even try to resist. His expression and posture had turned into one of defeat as he let himself be steered towards the chair and pushed down into it.

The door opened, admitting another man. Alec quickly ran through everything he knew about him in his mind. Francesco Youngwolf had been with the institute for a few years. Like Underhill, he liked to keep to himself, not engaging much in most social activities. He had an impeccable track record and was good with any number of weapons.

Right now, spotting the assembly in the room, he reached for the blade he carried, only to have his movement stopped by the tip of Jace's dagger.

He abandoned his attempt, his posture tense and ready to spring, but clearly realizing that he was too badly outnumbered. His eyes fell on Underhill, and the concern on his face displaced every bit of annoyance and anger that had been there a split second ago.

"Let him go," he said, his voice flat. "Do whatever you want with me, but let Ian leave. He shouldn't even be out of bed now."

"We didn't exactly tell him to get out of bed," Alec informed the newcomer. "And I would like to point out that we were here first. He walked in on us."

Underhill had covered his face with his good hand, refusing to look at anyone. "I wanted to leave before you arrived so they wouldn't—" he started, his voice pleading to be believed. "You're all right. I should have just stayed in bed."

Izzy's lips thinned as she looked back and forth between the two men. Jace still had his dagger out, but his posture had turned less threatening. Clary, somewhat confused, had stayed where she was on the box.

Alec decided to follow his gut feeling, hoping that the suspicion he had had from the moment Youngwolf had appeared in the door wasn't completely wrong. He stepped around the man and pulled the door closed. "Jace, back off. He's not going to attack us, and _Ian_ could do with a strong shoulder to lean on."

"Yes, sir," Jace said, a grin clear in his tone. He sheathed his dagger with a flourish and stepped back, waving Youngwolf towards the other man. "That's your shoulder he means. I don't think he'd appreciate any of ours."

Youngwolf moved forward stiffly, visibly torn between different options of how to proceed.

"Oh, by the angel!" Izzy blurted as he stopped almost an arm's length from Underhill. "Go ahead! Or do we need to find the recording of my brother's almost-wedding to convince you we're not going to give you any trouble?"

That had both of them look up at her, then at Alec.

"Magnus Bane," Alec said, emphasizing every syllable. "My partner's name is Magnus Bane, in case anyone here has forgotten that. I'm sorry we're hogging your secret meeting place, but we really do need this room tonight and we can't let you have it. Besides, it's uncomfortable and you really _should_ be lying down – and have someone take care of you."

"People can't know," Youngwolf said, but he did close the distance between them to lower himself to one knee before Underhill, bringing their faces closer to the same level. He reached out with one hand to touch the blond man's cheek.

Underhill tensed for a moment before he let himself sink into the contact. His hand came up to rest on top of Youngwolf's.

"Most of the institute wouldn't understand. It's not… They wouldn't…"

"I know what you mean," Alec assured him. "It's not right, but I understand not wanting to be the one to step into the open first." Their friends Aline and Helen, too, had kept their relationship a secret all the way until the moment they had had to flee to the safety of Calgary for other reasons.

"What were you four doing here anyway?" Underhill asked. He had moved his hand again, pulling his partner closer.

Alec looked at his friends in turn, checking if any of them was objecting to telling the two men the truth – or at least something that came close to it. They weren’t going to betray them – he was quite certain of that now.

"We needed to check a security tape," he said when all three had given him slight nods. "Unfortunately, the bit we needed seems to have been deleted. I was just going to see if I could find out who did that when you arrived."

Underhill looked at him with a frown. "Deleted?" he asked. "You shouldn't be able to delete the security feed – or any piece of it. Can I see?"

They exchanged another look. When no one seemed to object, Alec turned on the screen again and brought the video back, letting it run from about twenty seconds before the interference started.

"What is this?" Youngwolf wanted to know.

"She was helping us with a mission," Alec told him. "Someone distracted her from the tracker and the quarry got away. She's covering for whoever it was, and we wanted to know if it was really innocent, or if someone tried to interfere."

Moving his chair closer to the access panel so he could reach the input keys with his good hand, Underhill looked at Alec. "Mind if I try something?"

"As long as it's not getting us into trouble," Alec agreed.

Underhill gave him a lop-sided smile, while his partner snorted. "You've got more on us than we have on you now."

"It's not that bad, you know," Alec told him while he watched Underhill's fingers fly over the keys, typing strings of text. "Most people didn't seem to mind a very great deal, and then it was mostly because Magnus is a warlock."

"You're Alec Lightwood," the older man told him. "Son of the people who ran this institute for a long time. And there was a lot going on after that little stunt you pulled. People were distracted. It'd be different if Ian and I went about openly as a couple."

"It's not right," Izzy said. "You shouldn't have to hide."

Youngwolf shrugged. "'Shouldn't' doesn’t help us a great deal."

"Well, whoever messed up this video shouldn't have hurried quite so much," Underhill announced. "Here you go."

He hit one last button, and the video played again. This time, the time code was counting up steadily, the interferences and flicker gone. Lindsay sat at her desk, putting down the phone, and studying the screen. She waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Every once in a while, she glanced at the phone or looked around the room, as if checking if anyone was paying any attention to her. Several minutes passed.

Alec and his friends glanced at each other, then back at the screen.

"I think I know who she's covering for," Youngwolf announced.

"Me, too." Jace's voice was a low growl. "Herself. There's no one coming. She's just not sending anything anymore."

"Is it possible that whoever did this was smarter than you thought and looped a bit of video?" Alec asked. "Can we go back again and check?"

"Looped the video?" Underhill asked, already resetting the recording. "What makes you think that?"

"I saw it happen once before. Back when we had Valentine in the cells, someone tried to kill him there. It didn't work. We caught on in time."

"Not a loop," they decided after watching the section again. "She's just not giving us any more updates."

"What are we going to do now?" Clary wanted to know. "Are we going to report her, or do we ask her what she has to say to this?"

"Neither," Alec decided, not even thinking about it for very long. "We keep this in mind. We'll have to leave one of us behind next time to keep an eye on the tracker, but we'll not tell her that we know yet. I want to see what she does next." He turned towards Underhill. "Now, the more pressing matter for the moment is, how do we get you back into your bed without having you faint in the hallways? No offence, but you're white as a ghost, Ian."

"I don't feel too well," he admitted. "But I'll probably manage."

"If you cut the cameras, I'll walk you home," Youngwolf suggested. At his partner's glare, he continued: "What? They already know you're good with the feeds. You don't think they could have figured it out anyway?"

Rolling his eyes a little, Underhill turned back to the panel to type, choosing a set of cameras that lined the corridors to his quarters and combining them into a group to add commands to. It was evident that he wasn’t doing so the first time.

Alec watched him set a timer and loop the feed.

"I wasn't the one who did it for the attack on Valentine," Underhill told them. "I hope you believe me."

"No need," Jace said from behind him. "It was Duncan Armstrong. We know that. I want those commands."

"Not tonight," Youngwolf decided, reaching out to put a hand on Underhill's good arm to help him to his feet. "Tonight, he's going back to bed, where he should have been all this time."

Underhill didn't object. He leaned into his partner for a moment, his eyes closed as he bathed in their proximity. Then he straightened with a jerk and turned towards the door. "Let me know if you need anything I can help with," he said. "I'm off field duty for at least eight weeks."

_April 21 st, 2017_

_Alicante_

Lydia knew something was off the moment she entered her office. She couldn't even have said what it was, precisely, that first moment. It was just that the feeling of the room was wrong.

She stopped inside the door, looking around.

There were no obvious issues, no trace of anything out of the ordinary.

The last time she had felt like this, an intern had been in the office and tried to play a prank on her by leaving little surprises all over the place.

She checked carefully. The cushion of her chair didn't conceal any objects that would make rude noises when she sat down; no one had left sticky paste on her keyboard, and the holder for her pens and spare stele hadn't been glued down. There was no tell-tale sheen of oil on the magnetic board she used sometimes if she had to keep track of multiple aspects of a project, and the curtains were drawn back far enough to show her that nothing was hidden against the window pane.

Shaking her head at herself, she sat down and turned on her computer to check her messages. She was getting paranoid. Maybe she needed to ask for an assignment somewhere in the field again, at least for a short while. Her demon-caused injuries had healed, with only scars remaining on her chest and her broken and dislocated arm back in working condition.

A couple of weeks in action should take care of an overactive imagination.

How long would she need to finish her current projects? She mentally went through her tasks while the work station booted.

Still doing the math, she reached to one side without thinking about it, frowning as her hand hit the small metal box at an angle that swiped it off the table.

What the heck? Over the time she had worked in this office, she had developed habits. That box always stood in one precise location. She didn't even think about that. It was just where it went when she sat in front of her desk, and the act of retrieving it and putting it back had become so automated she didn't even glance at it.

She bent sideways to pick it up. Swiping her stele over its lock, she opened it to check the contents. Everything was there, as far as she could tell. She couldn't tell if anything had been disturbed before it had taken a tumble, because now everything inside was a mixed and jumbled mess.

This shouldn't have happened. The servants who cleaned in these offices knew better than to touch her desk. Sure – she could have put it down a little out of its usual alignment – but why should she have?

On its own, she would have let it go.

Combined with the odd impression that had come over her when she had entered, it gave her pause.

She looked around the room more carefully again, checking for things she hadn't paid attention to before.

The surfaces looked freshly dusted, which could have just been a shift of the cleaning schedule – or it could have been someone trying to cover up their tracks. Were the potted plants by the window facing a different way than they usually did? She wasn't sure.

She pulled up the recording of the surveillance camera in her office, finding an angle that showed the window. Even so, the difference was barely noticeable. If someone had come in to clean over night, it stood to reason that they wouldn't have put down something as irrelevant as some greenery in the precisely same position.

She bent for the drawers under her desk, carefully hooking her fingers into the second one from the bottom. It was stuck, as always, but she had the trick of wriggling it loose without getting anything inside in disarray down to an art.

Whoever had last been in her things had not. They must have pulled it out with sheer force, causing the contents to slip, disturbing the stack of file folders and causing the notebook that had lain on top of them to slide all the way to the back.

It hadn't been paranoia. It hadn't been her mind trying to make up excitement where there was none.

Someone had been in her office this last night, and someone had gone through her things – or tried to.

With the recorded feed already open on her screen, she skipped to the camera that showed the door and fast forwarded, watching herself leave. What followed looked like a still image, with only the counter indicating the time in one corner of the screen racing on.

The office lay still and silent. No one entered, while the lights dimmed and the room darkened, and then brightened again as morning came.

She stopped the video when she saw herself coming in and freeze for a moment.

She blinked. Did that mean that whoever had been in hadn't come through the door? Trying the other cameras didn't give her any different result.

No matter how certain she was of it – no one would believe her if she brought the matter up like this. According to the surveillance records, her office had been undisturbed all night, with no one in it – including the cleaning staff.

The cleaning staff.

She looked at the windowsill again, then the shelves of books on one wall. Both were freshly dusted.

It took her half an hour of scanning through the last day's recordings before she had found a spot by one of the flower pots where the zoom showed her a small amount of earth on the stone surface next to the clay dish it stood in.

Without zooming away, she switched to fast forward again.

Watching those crumbs of dirt was about the most boring bit of work she had ever done – or would have been if it hadn't been about finding proof that her work space had been violated in the last hours.

The timer showed 4:36 in the morning when the dark spot disappeared.

Her hand shot out, stopping the video, then rewinding it. Once the dirt was there again, she let it run at normal speed, approaching the moment of change.

Eventually, she came to the conclusion she had feared since the moment she had started her review: Not only had someone been in the room that night, but they had tampered with the videos, probably looping the feed so they could move in the room unhindered. What good was a surveillance camera if it was that easy to trick?

But that was an issue onto itself. It wasn't supposed to be easy to trick. She knew the ones in the institutes often weren't that hard to bypass, not always running on the latest software, and also not given the highest priority by the technical staff to begin with.

This, however, was Alicante. More still – it was the Gard. What she had just found couldn't have been done by some intern out for a prank, or even someone randomly trying to get her into trouble.

Someone with a higher access clearance than she had had to have been involved – and that meant that she couldn't just report this. As likely as not, she was going to talk to the very person who had ordered this little stunt.

Against her will, her mind went to another incident, not so long in the past: Two young Shadowhunters had gone missing, just after being reassigned from Idris to the Barcelona Institute. Aline Penhallow and Helen Blackthorn had disappeared without a trace, all attempts at tracking them coming up blank.

There was no real reason to connect the search of her office – which she was afraid was exactly what had happened – to that unfortunate incident. She'd had little to do with those two, though she had met them. They were friends of the Lightwood siblings. They'd been at Jace's birthday party back in January.

And that, precisely, was what her thoughts kept coming back to: They'd been friends of the Lightwood siblings. Those same Lightwood siblings who had been set up, more than once, to have terrible things happen to them.

She, too, was a friend of theirs. And she knew that, while they hadn't given her details – at her request – they were involved in things that could turn dangerous.

Could she afford assuming a coincidence? She didn't think so.

Maybe, she thought, she should talk to Imogen Herondale. She was Jace's grandmother after all. Or maybe not…

No, she decided. For the moment, she would just keep an eye on how things went from here. If she happened to come across the Inquisitor, she might drop a few hints and see how she reacted.


	7. Chapter 7

_Calgary_

It was early when Magnus' doorbell rung, and he frowned at the sound. It had a decidedly timid tone to it – which should have been impossible because doorbells weren't generally known for conveying much by way of emotion, but when around the Gales, you never knew. It might have picked up a trick or two along the way.

So, making sure that the working he had been in the process of was safely frozen, he went downstairs to check on his unexpected company, a spell in his mind just in case and a smile on his face. Most likely, it was a client who hadn't wanted to bother with the delay of calling for an appointment.

A cloaked figure stumbled inside as soon as he opened the door, sliding around the door frame and stopping, back against the wall.

With one raised eyebrow directed at him, Magnus closed the door.

"Well?" he asked when the lock had engaged again. "The house is warded. No one can see or hear us." He couldn't think of any other reason for the cloak, or the speedy and uncoordinated entrance – or for his guest taking a position where he wouldn't be seen easily immediately.

His visitor lowered his hood. He was a nondescript young man – and Magnus was certain that 'young' applied in the literal sense, even though he could see the sheen of magic that said warlock. He lacked experience and confidence, and the glamor that made his skin appear in a more common hue could have been better.

"I need help," he said, his voice breaking on the last word.

"I feel obligated to inform you that I'm neither approved by the High Warlock to ply my trade – or any – in Calgary, nor do I intend to join her forces," Magnus told him, while a sweep of his hand indicated the large living room with its comfortable sofas. "Shall we sit down to talk about this?"

Head hanging, his guest complied, moving ahead of him and dropping onto the seat his host indicated.

Thinking briefly, Magnus focused and summoned two cups of coffee. He might not have minded, but it was definitely too early in the day to offer a cocktail or whiskey to a guest or a client, and the Aunties would know where their breakfast beverage had gone when they found it missing.

"I'm in trouble," he began as soon as Magnus had sat down and reached for his cup.

"Talking to me isn't going to improve that," Magnus pointed out. "You'd be safer off if you spoke with someone official." This clearly was not the right moment for a jibe at the lack of a proper introduction. "Do you have a name you want to share with me?"

"Samuel Merrion," the young warlock said. "And I can't go to anyone else. I've tried. They won't help me."

Magnus looked only mildly surprised. "That's not a warlock name."

"I don't have a warlock name yet."

So his assumption about the man's age had been accurate. "You should pick one. What's your issue?" He raised one hand before Samuel could answer. "Mind you, I'm not saying I'll help you yet. But I'll listen."

The other man nodded. "I took on a client." He paused, waiting to see Magnus' reaction, possibly expecting a reprimand for taking clients at all at his level of experience – or lack thereof.

Magnus did no such thing. Though he didn’t particularly enjoy thinking back to that time, he did remember his own beginnings.

"She requested a potion. She was willing to pay a good price. I thought I could handle it!"

That suggested that he hadn't been able to. Magnus sipped his coffee as he waited.

After a short pause, the words came in a rush. "It failed, and I used up all my stores of some ingredients, and I can't afford to buy more, and she's really angry, and when I asked for help I was told—" He paused, needing to catch his breath as well as his composure. "I was told I better deliver, because if I didn't I might lose my license to sell potions at all, and it's not anyone else's responsibility to handle my contracts."

"What were you trying to brew?" Magnus carefully kept his tone neutral. It was never a good idea to use up all one's ingredients on a single potion, but if one couldn't afford a lot in terms of inventory, that couldn't always be helped. It was also a good idea to know one's own limits in that kind of work, and not attempt anything that went beyond it – especially not for money – but he would have been lying if he'd claimed he had never misjudged his own skills early on.

What really made him angry was the reaction the young man had faced when asking for help. He didn't doubt his words. It fit very well with the impression Shade had left with him.

Samuel looked into his cup as if the answer was written in the black liquid inside. He hadn't even tasted it yet. "My client needed something they could use a couple of days before exams. Keeping the mind open and attentive, improving memory, avoiding a need for sleep."

"You told them that kind of thing isn't going to give them knowledge that sticks?" Magnus asked.

His guest shrugged. "They didn't care. They just wanted to pass their exam without having to put in more than a couple days' worth of work."

And didn't he know those kinds of people who'd rather pay for a short-term enhancement than put in some actual effort? "When do you have to deliver?"

"Day after tomorrow." Samuel's voice was so low it was barely audible now.

Magnus stood, dusting his hands off on his thighs. "Then we better get to work. Lab's upstairs." He indicated the direction with a flourish. "After you."

*

Magnus couldn't help a smirk when he saw the young warlock take in what he could see of his home on the way. It certainly was luxurious – more so even than his loft in New York had been. The Gales, and especially the Aunties, believed in comfort, and he saw no reason not to adapt to their standards.

"Do you have your recipe memorized?" Magnus asked when they entered the room. "If not, check those books over there. I'm sure you'll find your potion in one of them." He knew precisely where the required information stood, but he wasn't going to do any more work for his guest than he had to.

"I think so," Samuel said.

Magnus raised an eyebrow at him. "You think so, or you know so? Never guess when you're doing alchemy, magelet."

"Magelet?" Samuel blurted.

"That's what you are, isn't it?" Magnus asked, smiling. "A little magician, not grown all the way yet. But you'll get there – if the warlock community of Calgary doesn't destroy you first, one way or another. So we better get that potion started and make sure it won't be tracked back to me. Which means I'll not be touching anything, with my hands or my magic. Now, do you know your recipe?"

Samuel gulped visibly, then spent a moment thinking hard. "Yes, Sir," he finally decided.

"Fine," Magnus said. "So tell me what you need."

He spent the next twenty minutes directing the younger man to various shelves and containers, until he had set out everything he was going to use. Ingredients and tools were neatly lined up on the counter, waiting their turn.

"What comes first?"

"Water into the cauldron and salt when it's heated almost to boiling," Samuel said.

Magnus shook his head. "First, that is not a cauldron. It's a pot. You can call it by its rightful name. Cauldrons are for use in front of a client when you need to look all flashy and special and _magical_. For your own practical work, use practical tools. Also the kind that you'll not have any trouble replacing if they melt on you."

"Noted." Samuel sounded a little rueful. Maybe, Magnus thought, there even was a hint of disappointment in his voice. He certainly had been surprised to see the down-to-earth equipment of Magnus' lab.

Magnus wasn't going to tell him that until he had watched Gwendolyn Gale at work, he, too, hadn't really thought to use mundane kitchen equipment for potion making. He certainly wasn't too old to learn new tricks, though, especially if they were sensible ones.

"Second," he continued, "start by measuring out everything you need. If you need something twice, measure out two different amounts and keep them separate. You don't want to have to think about that while you're working, or suddenly have to scramble because you overpour and have to get the ground mandrake back into the box."

"There is no ground mandrake in this recipe," Samuel informed him, but he started doing as he was told.

"That was rhetorical ground mandrake." Magnus stood aside, watching. The young man did have a knack for accurate work, he thought. If he could manage to speed up his progress a bit, and increase his confidence as he worked, he could make a good brewer some day.

Using what time they had where precise timing wasn't crucial to ask additional questions, Magnus acquired a reasonable understanding of his guest's knowledge while they worked – or, more precisely: while Samuel worked and Magnus watched.

Preparing the potion took a little over two hours, and it was growing quite hot in the room by then. Magnus, keeping himself cool with a spell, was wondering how long it would take until Samuel thought of opening a window to let in some fresh air. As it turned out, the other warlock could be very single-minded when he was brewing.

"Don't drip sweat into your potion," Magnus warned while the potion was boiling and they had a few minutes' respite in which nothing else needed to be done. "And don't bend over it like that to begin with. If anything goes wrong, you'll have a face full of boiling liquid that way."

"There's nothing in there that can do that," Samuel claimed, though he did move back a little.

The corner of Magnus' mouth twitched upwards. "Some habits are best if you never get into them. What do you do if you're sweating?"

There was a moment's pause. "Wiping my face?" Samuel hazarded.

"That, too," Magnus agreed. "But I was thinking along the lines of reducing the room temperature."

"I don't know a spell for that," Samuel claimed.

"Think mundane," Magnus chided. "You're not old enough to have lost their habits." He gave the window a pointed look.

The other man stared. "I can't just open that! There'll be fumes and people will notice and wonder what's going on!"

Magnus, true to his resolve not to let his magic get close to the potion, crossed the room with a few quick steps and opened the window manually. "See that?" He pointed at the fly screen. A slightly sparkling design hung at its center, barely visible at first glance. "That filters anything that goes outside. Sounds, smells, fumes."

"That's a Gale charm!" Samuel's voice had acquired a squeak.

"You knew I was associated with the Gales when you came here, I'm sure," he reminded him. "Look at it. Memorize it. They haven't exactly copyrighted them. They won't come after you for using a charm."

"The High Warlock will."

Magnus retreated back to where he had stood before and indicated for Samuel to check on his potion. "She just might," he agreed. "But then again, she might do the same if she finds out you were here to begin with."

He could see Samuel had tried to push that thought from his mind, and that he wasn't happy to be reminded of it. He limited himself to giving advice and instructions for the potion after that, until it was ready to be cooled with a spell and bottled.

"You saved my life," Samuel claimed when he slid the bottle into a pocket and followed Magnus back downstairs. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you for … the ingredients, or use of your lab, or your help—"

"I can afford to give away a few ingredients," Magnus told him. "And I didn't need the lab this morning. So don't think anything of it. I do wonder, though – what made you think to come to me in the first place?"

Samuel stopped in the middle of the stairs, turning towards him. "You're the only warlock I know of who isn't under her control. Or well, the only one I knew where to find – I heard some of the others mention you and… well, I thought I'd try."

"What do you mean by 'the only one you knew where to find'?" Magnus' eyes had narrowed. If there was any reason to expect a larger number of unaffiliated warlocks in the city, and if the High Warlock applied her approach to all of them, there could be trouble brewing that he had no wish to be part of.

"There was talk of some other one who wasn't cooperating… they were planning to bring him in for a little convincing today."

Magnus winced inwardly. He sincerely hoped the unknown warlock had his defenses up. "Did they mention a name?"

"Christopher something," Samuel said, frowning. "I don't think I caught the rest. You know him."

The last had been impossible to miss. Magnus knew he had frozen the moment he had heard it.

"Did they say when they planned to grab him?" he asked.

Samuel shook his head. "Not while I was there to overhear. Do you need help?"

"It's better if you stay out of this one," Magnus said. "You're not ready to go full-out against the High Warlock and her people."

A light shone in Samuel's eyes that hadn't been there before. "Oh yes," he told the older warlock. "I absolutely am."

 

_New York_

Ian Underhill was lying on his bed and wishing for the day to pass quickly – a rather useless wish, considering that the sun hadn't been up for long and most people in the institute wouldn't even have finished breakfast yet.

Francesco had walked him back to his room the last night, helped him undress and even tucked him in and made sure he was as comfortable as he could get. He had left a jug of water and a glass on the night stand and had finally taken his leave with a good night kiss, though not before checking the time to make sure the feed was still looped.

He'd fallen asleep quickly after the door had closed behind his partner, wishing for nothing more than that they could have had the courage to do what Alexander Lightwood had done and simply taken the consequences that were thrown at them.

His sleep had been restless, though, the pain throbbing in his arm in time with his heartbeat waking him up far too often. By morning, the rest of what little he had gotten by way of painkillers had worn off entirely and it had turned from violent flare-ups whenever he moved to a permanent fire that seemed to envelop his arm to the shoulder.

Trying to get up in order to distract himself a little had been a short-lived endeavor. Impossible as it felt, the movement had caused the pain to spike in intensity once again, drawing an agonized groan from him that he was glad no one else had heard, and causing him to sink back again. He'd just lie still and hope that it would subside a little, and then try again – even more carefully.

He was just wondering if he should have stayed in the infirmary after all, if only because someone would have brought him breakfast there, and maybe topped up the painkillers in time, when someone knocked on his door.

"Come in!" he called before thinking about it. There weren't a lot of people who would visit him to begin with – and certainly not this early in the morning. If it was Francesco, that was stupidly risky of him, but better to not have him stand in the corridor for too long. If he was lucky, it was some medic checking up on him.

It was neither.

The door opened, and Isabelle Lightwood walked into the room, Clary Fairchild following by her shoulder.

"Morning," Isabelle said as she approached. He felt her scrutiny and couldn't fault her for it. She lifted the bag she was carrying with one hand. "We thought we'd check on you and see how you're doing and if you need anything. I brought some stuff in case you need help with your arm."

"Are you a medic?" he asked. He wanted to sit up, but the movement jostled his wound and he stopped before he had gotten very far.

"Nope," Izzy admitted. "But I've acted as a medic for our group a bit when we needed one while out. I know a little bit – enough in any case to know that you're not going to change those bandages without help and that your wound will go bad if you just leave it. Of course you can go to the infirmary and have them do it…"

That would probably have been the more sensible thing to do anyway, but the mere thought of walking over there, every step sending a new jolt of pain through him, and then having to endure the annoyed looks he was sure to get… And, he had to admit, deserved, because he _had_ walked out against everyone's recommendation the last night.

He fumbled for the strap of his sling with his free hand. "Help would be appreciated," he told her. "Can't promise you I'll bear it in complete silence."

Izzy put her bag down and looked around for a chair she could pull over. If he'd been one of their group, she would have simply sat on the edge of the bed, but she didn't think that would go across too well here.

"If you're not above taking some mundane painkillers to help with that, I have some," she told him. "They're easier to acquire when travelling than potions are, most of the time, so we started carrying some." She brought the box out and held it up.

He frowned slightly as he thought about it. Now that was a solution he wouldn't have considered. After a moment he nodded, watching her as she removed two small capsules and placed them on the palm of his good hand.

Without bring prompted, she refilled his glass, holding it out for him to take and wash them down with.

He didn't know how long they would need to work, but he was quite sure he shouldn't have felt the effect immediately. That must have been pure anticipation. He didn't care. Anything that took the edge off the pain was welcome.

Izzy waited, giving the painkiller a little while to kick in properly. Her friend was still standing behind her, watching and holding a brown paper bag. She'd been mostly quiet the night before, too.

Underhill forced a little smile as he looked at her. "In what capacity are you here?"

"Just holding stuff and handing things to Izzy," she said. "And carrying your breakfast." She lifted the bag.

The thought of food had a double effect on him: His stomach unmistakably told him that it desired to have the food inside it _now_. At the same time, he didn't think he could force down any food past the pain just yet, and even if what Izzy had just given him kicked in, he didn't expect it to last past having his wound cleaned up and his arm re-bandaged.

Which reminded him…

He turned back to Izzy. "Do you need me to sit up?"

"No," she assured him immediately. "Just stay where you are. I'll be as careful as I can, but I'd really rather you're where you won't hurt yourself if you faint."

So she, too, was expecting this to be exquisitely painful.

"Let's get started," he suggested, steeling himself for what was to come.

Not wincing away when she touched him required an effort of will. With infinite care, she unwound the wrappings from his arm until bandages and splint fell away, exposing a stained patch of gauze stuck to his skin. Clary moved then, putting herself at an odd angle behind the other woman. Underhill wasn't surprised she was watching, but he could have thought of a number of better angles for that.

Wondering about Clary's odd maneuver, he almost missed the feather-light touch of Izzy's fingers, moving across the gauze that had served as a compress almost as if she was pretending to be a warlock performing a spell.

To his surprise, what should have been stuck tight and required soaking or some force to separate from his skin came away easily when she tugged on the edge.

The wound beneath looked somewhat inflamed – not surprising for one that was demon-caused. The medics had stitched muscles, tendons and nerves together inside as far as they could. Unfortunately, some kind of demon venom had eaten into the tissue closer to the surface, leaving the outer layers ragged and impossible to match up properly or be sutured.

"I have a salve a brewer we met on our travels made for us," Izzy told him as she wiped the area around the cut. "It does wonders for demon-caused wounds. Very soothing and keeping down the damage the venom continues to do."

Assuming that that was meant to be a question if he wanted her to use it on him, he nodded. "I'd appreciate it."

Clary fished a jar out of Izzy's supplies and unscrewed the cap before handing it over and taking her previous position again. If anything, she was leaning in a bit more than before. Izzy didn't seem to mind, though the red-head was casting something of a shadow on the area she was working on. Well, as long as Izzy could see what she was doing…

That thought made him do a mental double-take. He didn't need to glance up to know that while _Izzy_ could still see what she was doing, the camera in the room was going to get nothing but the back of Clary's head right now.

Using a kind of wooden spatula, Izzy applied a generous amount of the salve to his arm before he could think about that any further. It felt cold on contact, and more soothing than he had expected in spite of Izzy's announcement. She used the fingers of one hand to rub it in gently, working around the edges of the cut without touching the raw flesh inside.

As he watched her, he could have sworn she worked in a pattern that could have been a rune, except he hadn't ever seen it before. He was willing to put it down to his imagination, but Clary was still standing where the camera couldn't catch what her friend was doing, the pain was subsiding quickly to a barely noticeable twinge, and he suddenly remembered that his wound had seemed a lot less likely to drain him dry after Izzy had touched his arm the day before. He also could have sworn he'd regained some feeling in his hand after that, which he'd thought had started to go numb from a lack of blood supply. The medics had told him that the largest blood vessels in his arm had been miraculously missed by the demon, while wondering at the same time how he'd lost quite so much blood anyway…

Done with the salve, Izzy handed the jar back to her friend, who stowed it away and came up with another small cardboard box that looked mundane.

From it, they fished long, thin strips of white that Izzy taped across his wound instead of putting another compress on it. She aligned the edges as well as she could with them, which reduced the defect in his flesh considerably. He nodded to himself. He didn't mind scars, but the broader ones often came with a restriction of movement, and he didn't want that.

When she was done to her satisfaction, she replaced the splint to support his damaged bone and keep accidental movements from tearing apart the provisionally secured structures inside his arm before wrapping it all tightly in a fresh roll of bandages.

To his surprise, the pain still was merely an echo even of what he'd felt when the medics had worked on him – after giving him a potion for the pain – the day before.

"Thank you," he said. "That does feel a lot better."

He sat up then, steadying himself with his good hand. "Did you really mean the part about breakfast?"

_Calgary_

He should have made that decision a long time ago, Chris thought as he walked through the streets of Calgary. Knowing that he wasn't going to have to reach for that terrible, unpleasant part of himself again, to bring it out into the open and do things with it, was an immense relief. He felt more relaxed than he had in a very long time.

Normally, he would have had to hurry back by now to make his appointment with Magnus. Today, he took his time. Not only had he volunteered to do their household's groceries shopping, he had taken the long way around, planning to use every bit of that extra free time he had acquired.

If it also kept Sebastian from accosting him again and asking if he was sure about his determination to cease those lessons, that was a practical side effect.

It wasn't even that his _parabatai_ had been all too insistent about it. He knew, better than anyone else, how much Chris hated anything that had to do with his demon powers. It was just that he also knew quite well how much he had always been afraid that those powers might get away from him some day.

Alec had taken him aside the day before, of course. He'd pointed out once again that magic was a resource, and that they used what resources they had. He'd reminded him that they were all using the Gale charms, which came closer to magic than anything that the Shadowhunters had ever used before. Even he had backed off quickly, though, leaving the ultimate decision to Chris.

He sighed softly to himself. They just didn't understand. They didn't have that kind of power inside themselves, that constant reminder of how they were completely, utterly _wrong_. If he tried hard, he could manage, for short stretches of time, to not be aware that he had something inside him that was the antithesis of what he should be, that stood for everything that they were supposed to hunt and destroy.

He had worried a little about what the Aunties would say when Magnus told them about this turn of events – and tell them he surely would. Though he wouldn't ever have admitted to it out loud, those old women scared him.

Graham had laughed softly when he had mentioned it to him. "They won't stand in your way," he had said. "They are firm believers in natural selection."

What exactly the former assassin had meant by that, he wasn't sure.

Asked about it later, he couldn't say what made him freeze. He didn't think it was any kind of sound - not a physical one in any case. There was a strange feeling, however, of suddenly no longer being alone. He had turned away from the main street to walk through smaller, calmer passages, and as far as a slow sweep in all directions showed him, he was alone.

Shrugging to himself, he continued, outwardly unfazed but inwardly on high alert. He knew better than to discard that kind of impression. As he walked, he adjusted the two bags he carried, getting ready to drop his burden with minimal damage and draw his blade in a single motion if he had to.

He turned into another alley, and another. That strange feeling remained with him, like a steady companion. If that was Magnus keeping an eye on him, they were going to have a serious talk!

The thought was barely finished when a wall of sparkling golden light shot up in front of him, close enough that he would have walked right into it if he hadn't been forewarned. As it was, he stopped himself with only the slightest stumble. A half-turn brought him with his back to a building. His purchases hit the pavement as his blade seemed to jump into his hand.

Ready, his stance prepared to attack or defend in any direction he needed, he waited.

There were three, glamors rippling as they stepped away from their hiding spots on the other side of that magical barrier. The glow of their life forces told him they were immortals. Warlocks, probably.

One of them waved a hand, and the wall shifted, folding itself around to form a half-circle fence around Chris.

What would happen if he touched that magical barrier? He didn't want to find out, but he had a suspicion that he wouldn't be given a choice.

For a moment, he wished he had taken his crossbow to try and take out one or several of them at a distance. On second thoughts, he realized that he couldn't have just shot into the barrier without knowing what it would do upon impact.

The three had come closer, menacing in spite of their perfectly relaxed postures.

"The High Warlock sends us," the one taking point said. "Your introductions to her are long overdue. Will you come peacefully, or do you need a reminder of your place among us?"

"I have no place among you," Chris said, trying for a reasonable tone. "I'm a Shadowhunter, not a warlock. If the High Warlock has an issue with us, she needs to talk to my commander. That's Alexander Lightwood. He'll be around later today, I'm sure. I can give him your message."

In spite of his words, he found himself reaching for his demon power, almost giving in to its lure. He might not be able to get at them with his blade to defend himself, but he surely could counter magic with …

He clamped down on that thought. He wasn't a warlock. He wasn't a magic user. And though maybe saving his life, or his freedom, or whatever else was a risk right now, might have excused a use of that power he had never asked for, he realized even as those considerations passed his mind that he had no idea what to do with it anyway: At his insistence, he and Magnus had worked on control, direction, and a very small amount of regeneration and healing. He didn't have a single offensive spell to his name, and only the barest shields that had fallen into the realm of 'learning control'.

The warlock laughed. At first, he thought she was mocking him. Then he realized that it had more of an indulgent ring to it. "Boy, none of us asked for this," she told him amicably. "We were born to it, same as you. I have no idea how your father managed to impregnate one of _them_ , but get used to the idea that whoever you've been calling dad – he wasn't it."

Chris stared at her. She had it all wrong, of course. His father hadn't been a demon, though his crimes surely rivaled some of theirs – not the least one among them, as far as he was concerned, the experiments he had conducted on unborn children. "I'm not one of you," he repeated. "I'm not using that power. All I wanted to learn was how not to use it by accident."

He shifted position. He had to. The hand that held his sword up and ready was calm, but his other one, grasping a dagger, was starting to tremble. The electrum scar he bore on it was bothering him less than it had since he had started treating it with some of the Gales' concoctions, but the arm would never be what it was before the wound – and even the light weight of a dagger proved too much of a strain soon enough.

Again, she misunderstood, seeing his change to a less strenuous posture as a sign that he was coming around.

"You can't not use it." Her voice was pitched to be soothing. "And they will see you as what you are. They won't want you within their rows. We can protect you. We can train you. We can give you a place."

"I have a place." His voice sounded more confident than he felt, though he realized that, strange as it was, he did have _some_ sort of place among the odd company of Nephilim, warlocks and Seelie ignoring the rules of their respective people who had flocked around the Gales of Calgary. "I'm not coming."

"But you will." That voice had come from his left. His head snapped around, showing him another trio approaching with measured steps. They, too, were led by a woman, who wore something like tiger stripes on her skin. A warlock mark, undisguised? Or a fashion statement? He didn't know, and he didn't really care.

"We have orders to bring you before the High Warlock. You will either cooperate, or we will carry out our orders against your wish." She raised her hands, magic sparkling around her fingers. Vines of a rusty red shot through the golden barrier. "Your choice. Which shall it be?"

Chris' hands tightened on his weapons. There was no way he could take down six warlocks. He didn't think he could even prove enough of a nuisance to them to decide he wasn't worth the effort. He could only hope now that he could leave enough of a track for his friends to follow him by.

He shifted his grip, pressing the pad of his thumb against the edge of his blade. Sebastian would be warned that something was amiss in any case.

"Let's see if you can take me, then."


	8. Chapter 8

They clearly didn't have any intention to let it come to a physical fight. The magical fence shifted again, contracting and coming closer. Tensing his body like a spring, Chris waited for the last moment before he launched himself into the air, somersaulting and landing firmly on his feet again on its other side. He wasn't that easy to capture!

He lunged forward, his sword dashing at one sparkling hand to interrupt the spell that was forming, just as he slashed sideways with his dagger to distract another one of the group. They were six, though, and he was only one.

A ball of magic flew at him, reflexes honed by long training saving him as he swatted it aside with his blade. Even so, the hilt of his sword suddenly felt unpleasantly cold in his hand. He ducked one more spell, but came up only to see another one surge towards him – and this one he knew with terrible certainty he would be unable to avoid.

It collided – though not with him, but with an insubstantial shield that had sprung into being before him, causing him to blink in astonishment. His demon powers had _never_ gotten away from him like that! Was it—

He interrupted his thought as he realized that the shield had nothing to do with his own power, which was safely locked inside him.

"Freeze!" A female voice, well known to him, ordered. "Hands where we can see them, and drop whatever spells you're holding."

The warlocks had spun at the interference, staring in disbelief at the group that had arrived – too quickly to have come in reaction to the cut Chris had put in his own hand to alert his _parabatai_.

Yet Sebastian was there, crossbow in hand, with Aline and Helen by his side. Carrie and Ashley Gale –the most warrior-like of the family, who had taken great enjoyment in training with the Nephilim group – stood with them, staff and sword hefted easily and smiles on their faces that were nothing short of bloodthirsty.

Magnus had come, too, his hand still outstretched from where he had just thrown that shield. He was accompanied by a young man Chris didn't know, but could identify as a warlock.

"He belongs to us!" The leader of the six who had accosted Chris declared.

"I belong to no one!" Chris returned.

"What he said." Aline had slipped into the role of spokesperson for their group, a place she had taken on by unspoken but unanimous agreement, though she deferred to Alec when he was in town. "Now back off. We'll have your names and then you can go – for the moment."

Laughter among the warlocks was all the reaction she got at first.

"You think we will allow a handful of renegade Nephilim to play shadow world police and treat us like some common criminals?" The tiger-striped woman asked after a moment.

"We didn't start this," Aline informed her. "We were perfectly happy to leave you alone until you decided to interfere with one of ours."

"You'd really think they'd know better than to go after Gale associates," Ashley drawled. At least in a fight, it was easy to tell the twins apart. They favored different weapons.

"They got little Samuel," one of the warlocks observed. In spite of their leaders' words, the other four had dropped their magic, keeping their hands, though not exactly up, in positions that were unthreatening.

"Yeah," Tiger-Stripe noted. "Seems like they're the one doing all the interfering."

"I stand where I choose," the strange warlock by Magnus' side – Samuel – declared. The bravado in his voice sounded a bit forced.

Aline sighed. "We will not discuss this matter here in the street. Your names, please. You may direct your complaints to Mr. Lightwood. And you can tell your High Warlock that if she needs the help of a Shadowhunter, she can come to see him and ask, but it won't do to try and grab one of us off the street."

The leader of the local warlocks scoffed, power gathering around her hands.

"Oh no, you don't." With a single, nonchalant motion, Magnus tossed a band of magic her way. It struck her wrist, wrapping itself around both it and its counterpart, effectively tying her hands.

At a sign from Aline, Sebastian, Helen and the two Gales moved forward, each standing behind one of the warlocks. Without thinking about it, Chris walked up to the first one who had talked to him when they had caught him.

"Name?" he asked, making his voice sound just a little bored.

"Lisa Rain," she returned. Seeing disbelief in his face at how quickly she had given in, she indicated Samuel with a motion of her head. "The traitor there can confirm it for you. There's no point in lying. Can I go now?"

He glanced at Aline, though only to formally get her approval. It couldn't hurt if these warlocks understood that she truly was in charge of them.

Seeing her nod, Chris stepped away without turning his eyes from the warlock's hands.

She gestured, carefully choosing a direction that wasn't towards him. A portal sprung up before her. As soon as it had reached her height, she stepped into it and was gone.

 

_New York_

Both carrying mugs of coffee, Alec and Jace had come to seek out Lindsay at her desk as soon as they had finished the more solid part of their breakfast. Alec was carrying a spare cup, which he put down on the desk.

"Thought you might like some, too," he told the young woman as she looked up at him. He put down a sachet of sugar. "Pretty sure you don't take milk but I couldn't remember if you sweeten it."

"I do." She tore open the paper and poured the white crystals into her cup, stirring carefully. "Thank you. You didn't need to do that."

"It wasn’t exactly any great hardship," Alec pointed out. "How's your workload today? Are you okay to keep an eye on our tracker again?"

She nodded, just before taking a sip of her beverage. "Sure. Same procedure as before?"

"Yeah, mostly." He perched on the edge of her desk, blowing slightly on his own coffee before drinking as well. "Though we thought—"

He had just been about to inform her that they wanted to leave Clary with her today in hopes that Lindsay could familiarize her with the IT system a little, when the two women of their team arrived. Ian Underhill was with them, appearing to be decidedly better than the night before. His face seemed less marked by pain, and his posture was more relaxed.

Catching Izzy's eye, Alec took note of the quick thumbs up she gave him, half-concealed behind Clary. So Underhill had eaten pie and liked it. The heavily spelled Gale pies had proven a fool-proof way of telling friend from foe so far.

"You look good," Jace told the older man as soon as the three had reached them. "We expected you'd be mostly out of it for a few days after Izzy told us just how much blood you lost there."

Underhill shrugged, a little lop-sidedly. "I don't think I'm good for training yet, but I'm definitely fine to be up and about. I was wondering if I could see how those trackers worked. I heard of them, back when the Inquisitor wanted to use them, but I never got to see them in action."

"Luckily," Alec told him. "That was vile – the way she was going to use them. You really want to sit here and wait all morning just in case we catch something? I can't promise anything – you might be waiting all in vain."

"I've nothing better to do," the other man returned. "And maybe I can help. I could relay the information to you, for one, and Lindsay wouldn't have to switch back and forth between the computer and the phone."

"Are you cleared for duty?" Lindsay sounded doubtful as she directed a pointed look at his arm and the empty sleeve of his jacket dangling from his shoulder.

Underhill gave her a small grin. "Certainly not," he admitted. "But sitting in a chair and typing on a phone isn't exactly stressful work, and I promise you I won't faint on you."

"I think that's a great idea!" Clary declared, a light shining in her eyes. She hadn't been too keen on their previous plan, but had grudgingly admitted that among them, she was the one who had the best reason to stay behind and watch Lindsay.

Alec looked at his sister, whose look in return told him that she hadn’t expected Underhill's offer either. "I don't think it'll be a problem. He washed up and shaved and dressed himself without help. He should be fine."

Underhill gave her a small glare at her list of that morning's feats, none of which, he was aware, he could have done without her mundane medicine, or the strange salve, or the not-quite-runes she had drawn on his arm. He had no idea which one of those was to thank for the low level of pain that remained. He wasn't going to ask, but simply take it as an unexpected blessing.

"Fine with me, then," Alec said. "Lindsay?"

He thought he could see her lack of enthusiasm at being watched, but she nodded. "Sure. Let's do that."

*

"Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?"

Underhill was getting very tired of that question – or any of its variations – very quickly. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of people trying to get him to lie down and rest, have the medics go over his wound again, or otherwise remove him from the room today. He'd never realized there were quite so many people concerned about his health.

Of course, he wasn't under any illusions. The purpose behind those efforts was probably a far less philanthropic one. As long as he was sitting right there, ready to help out with conveying the tracker information, it would be impossible for Lindsay to come up with a reason to stall the four again.

To his surprise, she jumped to his defense this time. "Back off, Raj" she told the man who had just come to join them. "He's hardly going to strain his arm while typing a few messages for me."

He gave her a ghost of a smile for that. If he hadn't seen that recording the last night, he would have thought her reaction to be genuine. As it was, he still had to respond as if he believed that it was.

The phone before him buzzed, and he pulled up the message that had come in. "We got one," he told Lindsay. "Ready for the ID?"

At her nod, he read it out to her, then watched the screen over her shoulder as she brought up a map of New York and a small, green dot pulsating where the activated tracker was located. She zoomed in on it, studying the layout for a moment.

"It's moving north," she announced, needlessly since he could see it. "Taking a right turn now… and north again.

He typed, sent, and glanced back at her screen, making sure she was giving him the right information as she continued to comment on the progress.

The third time he looked up, he thought he saw the green dot flicker. "What was that?" he asked.

"Don't know," Lindsay told him. "Something disturbed the signal for a moment." She seemed as confused as he was, but he had seen she wasn't that bad an actress already.

Alec would just have to live with some more typos, because he was going to keep part of his attention on the computer from now on.

It wasn't long before it became a moot point. The signal flickered again, blinked in and out of existence, and eventually disappeared.

"We lost the tracker," Lindsay declared, sounding incredulous. "It's just – gone."

One last flash of green appeared, a little way away from where they had last seen the signal. Underhill wasn't sure if that truly was the tracker, or if it was just some kind of signal artifact. Nevertheless, he conveyed the location, including a warning note that it might be nothing.

"How did that just happen?" he asked.

Lindsay shook her head. She was typing commands, all of them meant to re-establish contact and none of them, as far as Underhill could see, anything that he wouldn't have used in the same situation. "I have no idea. I'd say it portaled out, but that wouldn't explain the on-off we got there."

"Maybe there's some kind of interference in that area," he suggested the only thing he could think of. "Let's wait a bit and see if it reappears." He was scanning the screen, trying to gauge where, given the direction the demon had been moving in before, it may have been heading.

 

_Calgary_

Jace had long accepted it that Auntie Gwen was going to press him into service in the store as often as she could. He didn't mind a great deal. If only she could have stopped calling him Jonathan…

The Aunties' habit of referring to everyone with their full first names wasn't going to change just because he didn't like his, though, and he probably should be glad that they had accepted him as bonded to Clary and therefore what they called "Second Circle" from the beginning. Those counting as single and childless tended to have the complete set of first names thrown at them, and he really didn't think he would have survived the constant dose of "Jonathan Christopher" that they were treating Chris with – at least not without threatening severe harm to one or several of them sooner or later.

Right now, he was happy enough to be downstairs, with a solid excuse to not join the discussion that was going on in the living room. Predictably, after Alec had gone through the morning's happenings with Aline and conducted a quick interview with the young warlock Magnus had somehow acquired, their main topic of conversation had turned towards Hodge.

Jace hated to admit to it, but on some level, he was glad for every hour that passed that the man wasn't awake. He wasn't sure what would have been worse: outright hostility and blame, or a continuation of the dejected resignation he had exhibited while they had been imprisoned side by side in the City of Bones.

Down here, he had plenty of other things to occupy his mind, and he actually did enjoy the process of selling things, the small conversations he had with the customers, and the feeling that he was doing something, no matter how small, to help the family that had helped them so much.

He had sold a couple of spoons, an egg cup, several books and a small painting already today. One of those spoons, he was reasonably sure, had been made of a material that wasn't usually used in the kitchen. He idly wondered if he should ask Magnus about it, and remember the buyer as a potential alchemist.

There were two girls in the store right now, inspecting a ball gown that was displayed towards the back of the store. It looked old-fashioned, as it should. Jace knew he had seen that very gown in the Lightwoods' attic in Alicante before, among the discarded things from previous generations. It was easily a hundred and fifty years old, but in near-perfect condition and would make a wonderful costume.

"With a few alterations, that would still be wearable and pass as a family heirloom," he repeated the words Allie had said when she had first inspected the garment.

They looked at him, giggling. "Would you put your girlfriend in that?" one of them asked.

"No." His face was perfectly serious as he answered. "It's absolutely not her color, and she's not the right shape to pull that dress off anyway. You, on the other hand…" He let the thought hang in the air unfinished. It wasn't hard to see that she wanted that gown. It was equally easy to see that she wanted to be talked into buying it.

"She's the red-head," the girl's friend said. "You've seen her around."

So those two had been lingering near the store? Jace made a mental note of it. He hadn't known that. Neither had he realized that they were quite that obvious, though the latter probably shouldn't have surprised him.

"Nah, you're right," the potential buyer told him. "This wouldn't go with red hair at all." She tossed her own raven-black curls over her shoulder. "It's just so expensive."

"It's genuine," Jace reminded her. "Worth every cent, too." He sighed softly. He usually had a small bargaining margin, set by Allie, but this was actually one of their items, which their friend only took a minimal commission fee for. "How much would you be willing to pay? I might be able to lower that price a bit if it goes to a good home…"

They were still discussing the price when the front door opened to admit two grey-haired women and a man of roughly the same age, who was walking arm in arm with one of them.

"Good afternoon Auntie Bea, Auntie Trisha," Jace greeted them with a nod. "Hi, Dan."

Dan turned towards him, releasing his hold on Trisha. "I'll be staying down here," he announced, moving to a spot behind the counter and leaning against the wall there.

No one challenged him. The Aunties filed out through the door marked "employees only", closing it firmly behind them again.

A few minutes later, the gown left the store along with its happy new owner, and Jace, recording the sale and putting away the money he had just collected, turned to his new companion. "Too many people upstairs?" he asked.

Moving his head slowly from side to side, Dan considered. "Not so much the many," he said. "More the how."

"The how?" Jace frowned. "Dan, you're not making any sense."

Dan had been adopted into the family a few years before their group. He was a telepath, whose ability had, of course, never been recognized or understood by anyone. Eventually, after too many failed attempts to cure his 'madness', he had ended up living in the streets of Calgary, where Charlie had somehow picked him up.

She had done something with her charms, helping him to control his ability and render it less debilitating. Still, he picked up thoughts that were directed at him, or strong enough to pass through what wards he had now, and sometimes being in the middle of a crowd made him freeze with the overload of mental voices assaulting him.

Putting his telepathic experiences into words also continued to be difficult. Since it wasn't a skill they could possibly use – even some short interaction with Dan made it clear that, while a lot more stable now than he had been, he wasn't anywhere near a condition in which he could be taken on a hunt – Jace hadn't paid much attention to his special skill so far. At least not once he had been assured that the man wasn't going to be digging through his skull for his most secret thoughts.

"There's a new man upstairs," Dan said after a pause, his voice low, as if trying not to wake a sleeper. "He's upset."

"Hodge?" Jace asked. "But he isn't even awake!"

"He's in a bad place," Dan told him. "Dark. Screaming. Nightmares. Traitor. My fault, all my fault. Brought it on myself. Should be dead. They won't let me die."

The inflection of those words were so eerily like Hodge's that Jace thought he could hear his trainer's voice overlaying Dan's.

"I get it," he said, a little harsher than he had intended. "I was there, too."

"The sword," Dan continued. "It digs in your mind. It sears, it burns, it—"

"Dan!" Jace reached out to touch the older man's arm. "That is not happening now. It's a memory. It's over."

The eyes that met Jace's were wild. "But he's still there. Are you still there?"

Jace blinked. "No." It was true, most of the time, though sometimes, when deeply asleep, it wormed its way back into his dreams. That feeling… the sword in his hands, wrenching the truth from his lips.

"Did you see the… the horror?"

"I saw the bloodbath Valentine started there," he confirmed.

"It has no eyes." Dan's hands went up as if he wanted to shield his face against whatever he saw in his mind. "No mouth. But it whispers, and it says—"

"They're called the Silent Brothers," Jace told him, though it probably didn't make a difference what Dan called them. "They… they tortured him."

There was a shrewd light shining in Dan's eyes. "And you?"

Jace sighed as he gave a small nod, almost as if against his will. "And me. But I was only there for a day or so."

Dan didn't pursue that line of thought any further. "He doesn’t want to go back there."

"He doesn't have to."

"He doesn't know that."

They looked at each other in silence for a few seconds before Dan continued.

"He's in the dark place with the screams but the horror can't reach him. If he wakes, it'll be all there again. He clings to the darkness so he won't have to wake to nightmares." He blinked, considering briefly. "That’s what he thinks, not I."

Jace stared at him. So as far as Hodge's sleeping mind was concerned, he was still in the Silent City? He expected to wake up to another round of mind control torment at the hands of the Silent Brothers? Jace shuddered at the thought. He couldn't fault the man for fighting to stay unconscious!

"Dan?" He waited until he had the other man's full attention before continuing. "Can you take the store for a short while?"

*

"We should take him outside!" Jace announced as he pushed through the door into the main room of the apartment. "He needs to understand where he isn't!"

Frowns greeted him, not quite comprehending.

"Did you leave the store unsupervised, Jonathan?" Gwen asked, her tone the definition of disapproval.

"Dan's taking care of it," Jace returned, shaking off the effect. "Hodge – Dan says he thinks he's still in the City of Bones. He thinks if he wakes up, he'll be tortured again. The cells were underground. Maybe if we take him where it's definitely not underground, he'll believe us!"

Apparently realizing that sending him back downstairs wasn't going to work right now, and choosing not to press the issue, Gwen rose and walked to the door. "You won't need me for that," she announced. "I'll make sure no one overwhelms Trisha's man and robs us while everyone's hanging out on the roof."

"He's not that fragile, you know," Jace said to the closed door a moment after she had left. Turning back to the others, he continued: "Other than that day he ran from the institute, he hadn't been outside in what? Sixteen years? Maybe that'll do the trick."

"Roof terrace," Charlie and Allie said as one.

"Go on ahead and take a few quilts," the latter continued. "It's still a bit cool. I'll get Michael."

Before he could offer to go back downstairs, where he was supposed to be, Jace found himself surrounded by his friends and pushed, gently but firmly, towards the stairs leading the other way. It was clear he wasn't going to get out of this one without a fight, and he didn't really have it in him to protest either. If his idea didn't work, the least he could do was to be there for it.

If it did…

Well, he'd cross that bridge when he got there.

There were several Gales on the roof already, enjoying the cool but not unpleasant air. They moved to accommodate the new group, clearing the sofa at Alec's request and shifting to deck chairs around a small table instead. The idea of keeping a sofa on the roof surely would have been reason to doubt the owner's sanity in any other location.

Here, however, the furniture was waterproofed with charms and tacked to the floor with magic – and a welcome place to spend the night for those who got too hot indoors in summer.

They had just finished folding out the bed portion when the door was pushed open again. Clary jumped to hold it so Michael could maneuver through it more easily. Charlie had settled in a deck chair and was tuning her guitar. Magnus, apparently deciding that it was a good idea to stay out of the way, had taken the drink he had brought from downstairs and settled by the table as well, watching the card game that continued as if it hadn't just been interrupted by their sudden plan.

Michael put his burden down on the sofa bed, folding back the blanket he'd been wrapped in slightly. "Let the man breathe a bit," he said by way of explanation.

Katie had come up in his wake, carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and several glasses to go around. She put it down within reach and crouched by the head-end of the sofa bed. "What's the plan now?" she wanted to know. She looked up at Clary, who had closed the door and was standing a step away. "Do you want this place?"

The red-haired woman shook her head, indicating the table with its occupants. "I'm the one he's least familiar with. I'll leave that to you and wait over there." It was, doubtless, a nod to the effort Katie had put into caring for the unconscious man in the last days. She appreciated it.

"The plan is trying to get through to him again," Alec said. "Jace? You should try it – it _was_ your idea."

Jace glared at his _parabatai_ briefly. He was bad at coaxing people into things! Or out of them…

He cleared his throat uncertainly. "Hodge…" he began. "You can wake up now. You're far away from the prison. We're all here and – oh, come on!"

Katie reached out, taking Jace's hands and guiding them to Hodge's.

The look he gave her was unconvinced, but at her encouraging smile and nod, he closed his fingers slightly and started stroking his thumb over the limp hand in a way he hoped was soothing.

"You're a genius, Jace!" Izzy called out, indicating a flutter of the closed eyelids. "I think it's working."

Glancing where she was looking, Jace saw the flutter subside. It made him tighten his grip slightly. They almost had him! They couldn't let him draw back into himself again!

"Come on, Hodge. Wake up. We need you." His voice was low, but insistent. He wanted to project them right into the former weapon master's mind, which was, of course, not possible.

Somehow, however, it seemed that he had gotten through.

Without as much as another twitch of warning, Hodge's eyes opened and he looked around, confused and more than a little disoriented, but very clearly awake.

*

Something was wrong.

No – not wrong: different. In an odd, not entirely unpleasant way.

He seemed to be lying in a bed – which wasn't an unusual place to wake up in. He remembered Valentine stabbing him. How could he not. A throbbing pain where his neck and shoulder joined reminded him of it even in his half-awake state. The light and warmth on his face didn't match any kind of Shadowhunter infirmary he had ever been in, though. Even if they'd removed him from his cell, even if they'd brought him back to the institute to heal...

The brightness that surrounded him was evident even with his eyes still closed.

A gentle breeze touched his face. It carried scents that took him a moment to place. It had been so long since he'd been outside, and he hadn't exactly had much time to savor it during that brief spell spent on his idiotic mission to take the Cup to Valentine and his subsequent short-lived flight. There was fresh earth nearby – not the stale smell that had permeated the dungeons – and living plants.

He could hear people around him, talking, laughing. Someone was picking a tune on a guitar. Calling, teasing … It was a sound he could follow up through the fog that still wrapped around his mind.

Someone was holding his hand.

"You're a genius, Jace. I think it's working."

Jace?

The hand on his own tightened slightly.

"Come on, Hodge. Wake up. We need you."

Jace! Speaking so close that he had to be sitting on, or at least right next to his bed.

His eyes snapped open.

It took a moment before he managed to process what he saw.

They were indeed outside, in some kind of raised location. He could see mostly sky around them. Clary was just getting up from where she'd been doing something – playing, from the look of the cards dropped on the table – with two women he had never seen before.

Another one was still playing her guitar, though the tune had changed slightly.

Jace squeezed his hand again. "There you go. Are you with us now?"

He wanted to say something; realized his voice wasn't working; swallowed, trying to get the parched feeling out of his throat. This entire scenario made no sense.

A strand of hair had slipped into his eyes. Raising his left hand without thinking about it to brush it away – the right one was still held and thus out of commission until he felt that he had gathered enough strength to wrestle it free –, he understood his error the moment the stump of his wrist collided with his head.

Pain exploded where his hand had once been attached, racing up his arm until it was met half-way by a matching bolt coming from the stab wound, which clearly disagreed with his maneuver.

A gasp of pain turned into a fit of coughing. There wasn't enough air. He tasted blood in his mouth; tried to clamp down on the rising sense of panic, felt his hold on it slipping…

Hands behind his back, raising him up, making it easier to breathe. Someone was talking to him – at him, the words didn't make any sense yet. The music changed again. Calming, soothing, carrying away some of the pain. Closing his eyes again, he let it steady him, focusing on taking even breaths.

Understanding started to filter through, along with more precise memory. Valentine. The dagger in his hand, blindly stabbing back to make him let go. The nephilim blades went through tissue and bone as easily as a knife through butter that had been left out for hours. The dagger was long enough to reach his lung even if it had somehow managed to miss the large, vital blood vessels on the way.

The pain didn't go away entirely, but it settled on a level that he could manage.

He raised his hand to wipe away the moisture on his face – tears of pain or sweat, he wasn't sure which. He didn't think he wanted to know. He didn't want to go back into that moment.

His arm was caught in a gentle grip halfway between wrist and elbow.

"Don't do that, Hodge. That looked painful."

That was Alec. Who else was here – wherever "here" was? Or maybe he should have asked who wasn't there.

He opened his eyes again and forced a lopsided smile.

"Thanks." A gentle tug was enough to make Alec let go, and Hodge carefully laid his arm down. Then he forced his fingers to relax so Jace could retrieve his hand as well.

"Well, I don't _think_ you broke anything," Jace determined after a moment of wriggling his fingers. "If you warn me next time, though, I'll let go first."

"Sorry. Needed something to hold on to there." Hodge's voice sounded like someone had replaced his vocal cords with sandpaper. Someone handed him a glass with clear liquid.  Jace steadied his hand as he lifted it to his lips to drink. It didn't stop a good part of the contents from spilling. The rest felt heavenly, though. He thought it was mostly water. The additional flavor might have come just from washing away the taste of his own blood.

He looked around again. He was on a sofa that folded out into a bed. Who had a sofa bed on their roof terrace? Admittedly he didn't know a great many people who had roof terraces, nor had he been on one in quite a long time.

He really should have felt crowded.

Jace was perched on the edge of his bed, facing him. Alec stood next to Jace, towering over them.

Something had changed since the last time they'd met, but he couldn't quite place it.

A woman he was sure he didn't know had sat down with them as well, her right arm around his shoulders still keeping him upright. She was leaning forward, tracing healing runes in the water he had spilled on himself with one finger of her free hand.

"It doesn’t work that way," he told her. His throat felt a little less like he had swallowed ground glass and his voice sounded a little more like his own for the lubrication it had gotten.

You couldn't actually feel someone smile at you, but he was unreasonably certain that that was what she was doing. "It does for us," she said. "Hi. I'm Katie. Katie Gale."

"Hodge Starkweather," Hodge said. "But you probably know that." For all that the runes _didn't_ work that way, the pain in his wound had dulled considerably.

"I thought you were going to wake him up, not kill him," a new voice said from one side. The speaker didn't sound amused.

Hodge looked past Alec, past Izzy, who still held the water jug, at another blonde woman he didn't know. This one was very clearly pregnant and had just come through a door that led inside the building.

"He'll be fine, Allie-Cat." The woman with the guitar. How she could tell that from where she was sitting was beyond him. Unless she was able to look through people, she'd barely see him between everyone who had gathered around. "The waking just ended up a bit more spectacular than anyone anticipated."

"My fault," Hodge admitted. "Forgot my hand's gone. Jace, stop that!" The last came out sharp enough to hurt in his throat, but he really didn't need to deal with the dejected look that had come over Jace's face. "What happened to 'I live with the good and the bad'?"

So. Alec, Izzy, Jace, Clary; Magnus Bane, entirely relaxed and comfortable in a deck chair across the roof, a cocktail in his hands and looking for all the world like he was just there for the music; a variety of strangers who looked like they had to be at least distant relatives with some very dominant family traits. Somewhere on a roof terrace. The information didn't make any more sense as it aged.

He gave up trying to puzzle it out. "What is going on here? Where is here? What happened?" He didn't protest when Izzy took the empty glass from his hand and refilled it.

"It's a long story, Hodge," Alec said. "And it's kind of complicated."


	9. Chapter 9

_New York_

"Mr. Lightwood," Aldertree said as soon as Alec entered his office. "Please, take a seat."

"Thank you." Alec's voice was measured and controlled. Truth be told, he would have preferred to remain standing. Still, he lowered himself into the chair Aldertree indicated.

"I hear that you have commandeered some help with your project," the Head of the Institute observed.

Alec's lips twitched. "Commandeered is hardly the right word," he said. "Lindsay assured us that she didn't have anything to do that would suffer from checking the tracker for us."

"Is that so?" The older man glanced at a notepad he had on his desk, holding it so Alec could have caught a glimpse of what was on it, had he made an effort.

He chose not to give Aldertree the satisfaction and waited calmly, merely nodding in response.

"Well," came the answer after a short while. "I assume that is true. In fact, I have the impression that Miss Rosewood's skills are not used as well as they could be in her current assignment."

Alec raised his eyebrows slightly. "You're thinking of reassigning her?" he asked. Well, if that was supposed to be a way of stalling them without being too obvious, it wasn't going to make a huge difference. It also suggested Aldertree wasn't aware of that little stunt she had pulled during the first tracking attempt.

"Yes," Aldertree confirmed. He picked up a pen and made a note on his pad. "To your team, in fact, Mr. Lightwood. Getting to the bottom of the demon issue is important, and I believe that your project might profit of having a few more good people involved."

That changed things a little. "We don’t want to take anyone away from their assignments," Alec said. "We surely can manage as it was … though if you're sure her reassignment would not cause any issues, and if she agrees, we will gladly take her." He hoped that he was convincing. They couldn't cut Lindsay out of their work anyway without giving away that they knew more than they were supposed to. Having her as a regular team member might give them a way to keep her busy – and supervised. He also didn't see how he could seriously refuse her without raising Aldertree's suspicion.

Finally, they knew that Lindsay had some kind of agenda. If Aldertree insisted on supplementing their team with someone else, that person would be an unknown.

"I have also heard that Ian Underhill gave her a hand this morning," Aldertree continued, barely waiting for Alec's repeated nod before he went on: "In spite of not being fit for duty after his recent wound."

"Frankly, sir, I believe he was bored," Alec said.

"I'd like you to take him into your team as well." Aldertree made another mark on his paper. "Give him something to do around the institute, keep an eye on him. I fear he'll be out in the field on his own without clearance if he's getting bored after barely 24 hours off duty. Make sure he doesn't strain his wound, though."

So Aldertree wanted them to babysit Underhill? Or was that his way of making sure they had so many different things to keep an eye on and people to keep track off that they would make a mistake?

Well, he certainly could have imagined less convenient orders.

"Certainly," he replied. "Anything else?"

"I don't know," Aldertree said. "Is there? Do you have anything you would like to report? Or is there any other man or woman in the institute you would like to have on your team?"

Alec hesitated. It surely was a risk, but… "Francesco Youngwolf," he answered after a brief pause. "He did some work on certain kinds of magic and the power of emotion in the past. We have a suspicion that the attacks we are seeing are targeted at not only causing the greatest degree of terror, but also the greatest … change of emotion in the targets."

Aldertree reached for a thin file off to the side and tapped it once. "I read it in your report," he said. "And I agree. Do you know the past research of everyone in the institute?"

"No," Alec said. "But I know all the work that anyone in the institute has done on the subjects we thought might be of relevance. We checked for possible sources of information."

Actually, they hadn't done so until the last night, when they had decided to read up on Youngwolf and found his convenient research interest. Aldertree didn't need to know that.

"Alright then," Alec's superior told him, once again writing something down. "You now run a team of seven, Mr. Lightwood. I hope you'll be up to the task."

 

_Calgary_

Hodge hadn't said much after Alec had summarized their current situation. The entire thing was difficult to process. The mere fact that he was still alive and that several months had passed since that day in the cells would take a while to come to grips with.

If it was even true. Now and then, a terrible certainty washed over him that none of this could be real. He had to be caught in his own mind, somehow fed this unreal scenario by the Silent Brothers, who were surely ready to turn it into stark horror the moment he relaxed even the least bit.

It would have explained why Alec and Jace, Izzy and Clary had seemed somehow wrong to him.

On the other hand, it was an insanely complicated scheme, the details far too unlikely to be true. If he'd wanted to set up a scenario for the purpose of tormenting someone by destroying it again, he would have chosen something simpler.

Maybe that was exactly what they were thinking…

He knew those thoughts were only going to go in circles and never come to any kind of sensible conclusion. The only real choice he had was to wait and see what came of this.

Katie and Charlie – the woman with the guitar, who looked as if she wasn't eating enough and had a strange air of power around her – had kept him company when Alec and his friends had taken their leave, saying something of a curfew imposed on them.

Only when the approaching night had made the air on the roof uncomfortably cool had the pregnant woman reappeared together with a man built like a Shadowhunter at the height of his training, but not sporting any runes at all. Michael, as he had been introduced, had offered him a hand downstairs.

As it turned out quickly, Hodge was in no condition to stand, let alone walk. Michael had merely smiled and picked him up. Though he was certainly up to the task, Hodge resolved not to visit the roof again until he could do so under his own power.

Dinner had been waiting in his room. He'd eaten slowly, balancing his spoon in a hand that was shaking from exhaustion even at the simple task. Katie joined him, watching him eat. He focused on keeping his hand still, which meant that he took even more time.

She returned once again after bringing the dishes back to the kitchen and sat on the chair by the bed. "Is there anything else we can do for you tonight?" she inquired.

Silence stretched between them as Hodge looked out of the window, as if the answer to her question was written somewhere on the facades of the buildings across the street. He really didn't think there was. He just hated the thought that it was 'tonight' already, that the sky outside was rapidly darkening and that his eyelids were feeling as heavy as if someone had hooked small weights to his eyelashes.

"I… don't want to sleep." He didn't know why he admitted to it. He didn't know what kind of reaction he had expected.

"That sounds like there's a story behind it." Katie made no move to get up and leave.

What could he tell her? Maybe the truth would sound sufficiently silly when said out loud that he'd convince himself there was nothing to fear.

He carefully didn't look at her face as he spoke. He really didn't need to see her grin when she heard.

"After the Silent Brothers were through with me, they put me in a cell. Alone, underground… that wasn't the worst. They have mind control skills. They use them. They force nightmares. Every time you sleep, you go through the worst things your mind can dream up. You do anything you can not to fall asleep." He paused, swallowing audibly as he steeled himself for what he expected to follow. "It's silly, I know – but even with them gone, I'm afraid to sleep. What if it's permanent? What if they planted some kind of nightmare machine in my head? What if I've just gotten so used to it that my mind will keep on producing its own..?"

He wasn't going to mention his fears that he was, in fact, caught in one of their scenarios right then. If he was, they didn't need to know he suspected. Turning his head, he looked at her.

There was a look of horror on her face, though it didn't seem directed at him. "I'd like to point a couple of Aunties at those Silent Brothers now," she said quietly. "Or Jack. Jack would be a good option."

"Who's Jack?" It seemed relevant.

"A cousin. He's a bit special. You'll meet him one of these days." She nodded to herself as she stood. "I'll be right back."

*

Katie spent enough nights over to have a complete set of Gale essentials deposited on site. Her trip to the room she used when she slept in the apartment only took a minute.

She returned to place her folded quilt on his bed. "Gale girls do a number of unique things," she told him before he could ask. "One's making quilts. We make them for our children, we get them from our mothers. Sometimes also from other family members. Godmothers, friends… They're charmed all over to keep us safe." She unfolded the first layer, then the second, holding it up so he could see. She pointed at some of the charms, worked into the pattern, inseparably blended with the quilt. There were multiple "Sweet dreams" ones on this one, along with a few to improve the user's sleep and some to guard against actual dangers of the night. One adjusted temperature, which could be an issue even in Calgary depending on the season.

"This isn't how runes work," he protested, though he didn't sound very convinced anymore. One day in the company of this family already had him doubting too many things that he had always taken for unshakable truth.

"They're charms," Katie said. "They work." She folded the blanket that had covered him away and placed it on the foot of the bed before she carefully spread the quilt over him. "This will keep you safe. Safe from nightmares, too."

It didn't matter if he believed that runes could work this way or not. He felt the protections settle around him the moment the weight of the quilt rested on him. Judging by her smile, she had seen the tension seep out of him.

"Thank you." Though… "What about you? Isn't this yours?"

She nodded once. "I wasn't tortured. I can sleep under an uncharmed quilt tonight. I have another one at my condo, too." She could see him file away the information that she didn't always live here.

He didn't look entirely convinced.

Katie sat down on the edge of his bed, so as not to talk down at him as much. "Hodge…" She sounded a bit less certain than she had before. "Look, if you were one of my cousins… in this situation… I'd just stay here tonight. We're very – we don't do very well on our own. Most of us, that is." She didn't need to go into the details of Wild Powers in general and Auntie Catherine in particular right now. "I can sleep here if you like. Just sleep," she hurried to add at the sudden flush of color on his face. "You're not in any kind of condition for the other kind of sleeping right now."

Hodge had slept alone every night since his first conviction. For the longest time, he hadn't thought that he would ever not be sleeping alone again. If there was anything that would keep reminding him that he was no longer at the mercy of the Clave…

He nodded mutely, half expecting her to laugh and tell him what an idiot he was to think she was serious about this. And if this was a dream scenario? Neither he nor, he suspected, the Silent Brothers had a lot of experience with the sharing of beds. Maybe this would even give him a better idea of how real or unreal what he was experiencing was.

A few moments later, she was cuddled up against his uninjured side, a warm, reassuring presence of which he had no idea what to do with.

"Good night now," she told him. Her hand brushed his arm. He didn't even have the time to wonder if she was tracing a rune there before he drifted off to sleep.

 

_April 22 nd, 2017_

_New York_

"I don't know that this is such a great idea." Francesco had come to the meeting Alec had scheduled for their team early. He was keeping his voice low, which could have been interpreted as not wanting to yell at the man who was now his commander. Alec was perfectly well aware that the likelihood was far higher that he wanted to minimize the risk of being overheard.

"You need to take that one up with Aldertree," Alec informed him. "I wasn't the one who suggested expanding the team."

"Did you have to pick _me_ , though? What if someone—"

He interrupted himself at Alec's raised eyebrows. "Just go ahead and complain a bit about having to work with us," he suggested. "That should keep everyone happy. And if it's any consolation – I really did choose you for the research."

"I would have told you what I know without being assigned to you," the older man insisted.

Izzy frowned at him. "Right. And that wouldn't have been suspicious at all, all things considered? Surely it's safer like this. You have a good excuse to talk to us, and you can always rope Lindsay into helping you out in the library when you do go and do some more research for us if you insist on cooperating with someone who has two working hands to carry books."

He glared at her, though his heart didn't seem quite in it. Before he could respond, however, the door was opened again, to admit both Lindsay and Ian. The latter sat in the chair closest to the door, half a table away from Francesco, while Lindsay settled across from Alec.

He, in turn, stood, opening the meeting.

"You all know each other, so I won't waste any time to introduce anyone," he began. "And you know our task, which is to try and track this recent demon infestation back to its source. Now, if any of you have any more suggestions of whom we should add to the team, let me know, and I'll bring it up with the boss."

When no one said anything to that, he continued: "We've all had some time to think about what happened yesterday. Any ideas of what might have happened?"

"My bet's on some kind of radio interference," Lindsay said. "The mundanes come up with things all the time, and a lot of it isn't any good for anything other than to mess up other people's work. Someone was probably running something somewhere."

As if by silent agreement, Jace got up from his chair as well, walking over to the whiteboard and putting down 'radio interference?' on it.

"Personally, if I was some kind of evil mastermind using demons for my ends, I'd throw wards on them so they can't be tracked," he said, adding a second line that said 'wards?'.

"But then why did it keep going on and off?" Lindsay asked.

Jace barely thought about his answer. "Maybe the wards needed time to settle. These are demons we're talking about – I don't think people usually ward demons, so it might be tricky. Or they may have been using some device and it took a while to come on properly."

Clary's eyes narrowed. "Do demons use devices?"

"Why wouldn't they?" Underhill rubbed his injured arm carefully. "But I have a different proposal. You know demon venom and demon ichor often is corrosive. The tracking chip simply may not have been up to resisting it."

Wordlessly, Jace added a third line. "All of those have their merits," he decided as he stepped back to wait for more suggestions.

When none came, Alec took control again. "So we should talk to someone who knows about mundane technology and see if the interference theory can hold up," he began.

"Simon," Izzy suggested. "He's the person we know who's the most closely involved with that kind of thing."

"Can you take care of that?" her brother asked.

She gave him a nod. "It's probably best if I do that this afternoon. Do you want to come along?" The last was directed at Clary, who sat next to her.

The red-head gave her enthusiastic agreement. It had been far too long for her taste since the last time she had had an opportunity to talk to her best friend without the mediation of a phone.

"Then Jace and I will go and talk to someone about how to maybe fortify a chip against ichor," Alec decided.

"Who'd you talk to about that?" Lindsay wanted to know.

"Someone we know who is really good at protecting things from destruction," he informed her.

Jace continued before she could ask anything else. "They're not fond of strangers at their place, so Alec and I should be going alone." That was a blatant lie, of course. The Gales were about the most welcoming people they knew of. Taking Lindsay there was completely out of the question, however. Explaining about the near-indestructible Gale phones to her was, as well.

Alec turned to the remaining team members. "Francesco, I'd like you to review your work on the use of emotion in magic and to check if there have been any new findings since then. If we can find out what these demon attacks are actually meant to achieve, that might give us an idea of where to look for the source as well. Ian, Lindsay – you'll be at the computer again while we're on patrol this morning."

He didn't wait for their confirmation. "Lindsay, I'd like you to screen upcoming events this afternoon and make a list of where we may expect further attacks. Jace can show you how he did it. Ian – you'll go through the historical records and see if there's anything reminiscent of what we're facing here. Feel free to send a fire message to the Silent City for input, too." Now that he had a larger team, not putting in proper research would have been an oversight that could have been noticed. Besides, if they had the resources to collect more information, there was no reason not to do it. They'd done a cursory search of past events, of course, but they hadn't gotten around to actually going into depth there, focusing instead on other subjects.

"And that's it from me – Does anyone have anything to add?"

 

_Calgary_

"Catherine Marie Gale!" a voice cut harshly through the quiet morning. "That man has not been cleared for duty yet!"

Katie groaned against Hodge's shoulder. "Cut it off, Auntie Gwen," she said, raising her head just far enough to speak clearly. "We're just sleeping here. The kind of sleep where you have your eyes closed and don't move a lot."

She felt him tense as he realized the situation. "I know. Some Aunties could work on their sense of privacy," she told him.

"You are very clearly awake now," Auntie Gwen declared from the door.

"And whose fault is that?" Katie muttered. Given the way the light fell through the window, most of the rest of the apartment was probably still asleep and Gwen had let herself in – again. Katie would have been willing to bet she'd picked an indecently early time specifically for the purpose of waking them up.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Auntie Gwen. I'll be right up."

Gwen didn't budge from her place in the doorframe. "Well, get to it. Your man needs breakfast to get his strength back."

Katie sighed. "He _needed_ to get some more sleep and an advance warning about the concept of 'Auntie'."

"Your fault for not giving him that, then," Gwen declared, clearly referring to the latter. "His bandage needs changing, too. Since you're here anyway, you can do that." With that change of subject, she turned and walked towards the kitchen, not waiting for any kind of reply.

Rubbing the last bit of sleep from her eyes, Katie sat up and took a long look at their guest.

He looked back, eyebrows silently raised. He didn't seem quite sure which question to ask her first. She decided to give him a few answers anyway.

"I'm sorry. I really should have warned you. The Aunties run the family in general and they try to run our lives in particular, too, if we let them. They have zero sense for staying out of things and they love to meddle – which may be a bit redundant. If you're going to stay, you better get used to them."

"Stay?" He didn't sound appalled at the prospect. At least she didn't think he sounded appalled at the prospect. Not very appalled. He sounded more… astonished by the thought that staying might be an option.

"It's not that bad here, and I'm sure Alec and the others won't betray you." Seeing he was about to say something, she hastened to add: "You don't have to decide now. Last time someone tried to rush this kind of thing, it led to quite some excitement. Take it slow." They didn't need the situation of Graham and Allie revisited. They really didn't.

Hodge's expression changed into a frown. "Last time? How often do you do this?"

"We didn't use to do this a lot until we moved to Calgary." Katie decided staying in bed any longer was tempting fate – or rather: Auntie Gwen – and got up. She didn't even try to resist the urge to straighten the quilt over Hodge. "But ever since – we've taken in a few. Allie has a more inclusive way of looking at family than the circles back in Ontario had. Or maybe it's the place. Things are happening in Calgary, so maybe it just gets more people who can survive being absorbed into the family."

"You don't mean that literally, do you?" Hodge's frown had deepened.

"No." Mostly she didn't. "Okay, let's get to work. We can take care of your wound while the coffee's boiling."

*

The moment Katie entered the large multi-purpose room, Auntie Gwen informed her that she could easily be halfway through baking the pancakes if she'd been a bit more prompt about getting out of bed.

Katie shrugged and poured coffee beans into the machine, checking the amount of water in it twice – just the other day, someone had miscalculated and made coffee that only Jack could stomach. She didn't need anyone claiming she had her mind on something other than her work. Least of all if the person claiming such things was an Auntie.

"They'll have to wait some more," she said, picking up the tray set out on the table just as the coffee machine started to gargle. "I need to take care of our guest first. It'd be very impolite to let him wait."

She probably could have baked all of the pancakes in the time it took her to untangle herself from Auntie Gwen's verbal sparring.

*

Under the protections of the charmed quilt, Hodge had actually dozed off again. His dreams were the antithesis to the nightmares he had suffered under the Silent Brothers, and if Katie featured prominently in them, that was only logical, he assumed. After all, she was the first adult woman who hadn't looked at him with some measure of disgust or distrust in the last sixteen years.

Katie eventually returned from her foray into the apartment, muttering something about her Auntie.

Upon seeing the supplies she carried, Hodge shifted on the bed to give her better access to his left side.

He was no stranger to injury, though even before the entire mess with the Circle went down, Shadowhunter infirmaries had been rather on the functional side. After, he quickly resorted to taking care of his own injuries when he managed to overdo things in training or in the rare occasions that a student got in a lucky hit.

Gentle fingers tracing a rune on the bandage that made it come away easily instead of simply ripping it off was a new experience.

He turned his head, trying to get an angle at which he could see the wound. It looked a few days healed, the edges of the cut held closely together with a number of steri-strips. He frowned. From the way it had felt, he had expected more time to have passed.

"How long have I been here?"

Katie dabbed at the cut with liquid taken from a jar that looked like it belonged in a mad scientist's lab. "Three days."

Apparently, she could read his expression well enough to place his confusion. "If you'd been responding to the healing charms normally, this would be healed with just a scar left now," she said. "You don't, though. The Aunties had to choose what they were throwing their power at, and they used it to fix the damage that was going to kill you. So… they closed up the large blood vessels, they sped along healing of that hole in your lung and they stabilized your collarbone a bit – I think that's about a week or ten days healed. Interesting knife, by the way, to go through bone like that. The rest's going to have to heal on its own."

That felt about right. "Why am I not responding to the healing charms normally?" he wanted to know.

She tapped the agility rune on his chest. The touch of her finger sent a jolt through him that felt surprisingly pleasant. "It's got to do with your Runes, and it's a long story better explained by one of your friends. Bottom line – we can fix it, but the fixing would have taken longer than you'd have lived if we hadn't done anything about that wound. The dagger was blocking most of the blood flow when we brought you over, but we couldn't exactly leave it in indefinitely."

No, they certainly couldn't have done that. He almost winced at the thought. "Quite amazing that it managed to miss everything that would have killed me even faster," he pointed out.

"That might have something to do with the Good Luck charm we threw at you the moment we came out of the Wood. That must have been a second or so before the knife connected."

"One day you're going to tell me the entire story of how you got me out of there," Hodge said. "Once I actually understand what you people are and how you're doing… what you are doing."

Grinning at him, Katie nodded. "Just tell me when." She drew a Healing rune on his skin around the cut, then stuck a fresh patch over the wound to protect it, pressing on the self-adhesive edges carefully. Another rune outline went on top of the white square. Hodge squinted and shook his head. He could actually see the lingering lines she had traced with nothing but her bare finger.

"Is that going to do any good?" he asked. Then, not wanting to sound like he was dismissing her odd way of applying Runes, added: "If I'm resistant to your Healing Charms?"

Katie shrugged. "I have no idea. But it won't hurt."

That it really didn't. He'd never had a rune applied painlessly before.

Of course, this one wasn't seared into his skin either.

Of course it wasn't a rune. It was a charm. Whatever a charm was.

Katie reached for another jar. This one was made of plastic and looked decidedly more modern. "According to Auntie Gwen, Peggi says to put this on the other one." She gestured at his arm.

"That's mostly healed." Hodge lifted his arm to let her see. The scar was a thick, angry red line where they had stretched the skin over the stump of his wrist and stitched the edges together, but it looked all closed up. "Who's Peggi?"

"A cousin of mine," Katie supplied. "She's a pharmacist. She thinks it could probably use some soothing."

That explained the difference in container, though he could see the runes – charms – in the salve it held. He also had the distinct feeling that Katie was giving him the redacted version of what Peggi had said. Or what Auntie Gwen had said Peggi had said.

"And what does your aunt think?" He was a little reluctant to let her try. The wound had closed, but if cousin Peggi assumed that his wrist was incredibly tender and painful when touched, she was spot on. Where had the leather sleeve he'd used to protect it gone anyway?

"Auntie," Katie corrected. "And Auntie Gwen thinks that anything that isn't going to kill you is best ignored."

That sounded more like a Shadowhunter.

He came to a decision. "I think I prefer cousin Peggi."

Her laugh sent a small shiver down his spine. "You're in good company then." She took his arm between her hands and spread a generous helping of the charmed salve on it before starting to gently rub it in. "Tell me if I hurt you."

Surprisingly, she didn't. He wasn't sure if it was the salve, the charms in it, her touch or the extra charms she traced on his arm while she was working. Possibly, it was a combination of all of that.

 


	10. Chapter 10

_New York_

"You know what I don't like much?" Izzy asked when they were out patrolling that morning. Today, they had chosen a path that took them past the Jade Wolf. Maia and Simon weren't going to be around until later, as a quick phone call had determined before they had set out, but they still hoped to run into Luke. They wanted to get an idea of how the mundane police were handling the demon attacks.

While he surely would have informed them if there was any direct need for them to act, it couldn't hurt to stay up to date.

"What is that?" Alec returned.

His sister stayed on high alert and never stopped watching the streets around them as she spoke. "That we'll all be out of the institute this afternoon and Lindsay has a task that she's supposed to do unsupervised."

"We still have Jace's list for the next two days," Alec reminded her. "We'll compare it to hers."

"She might find other ways to stall us, even if she hands in a proper analysis," Izzy cautioned. "We can only guess what her agenda was behind messing up the tracking that first time, but given that Aldertree basically forced her on us permanently now…"

The grin was clear in Jace's voice. "Given that, we can assume she's somehow working with him, you mean? Agreed."

"Do you think one of us should stay back and watch her?" Clary sounded displeased. Remembering that she'd been supposed to stay back to watch Lindsay, she was probably fearing for her visit with Simon already.

Her fiancé made a placating motion with one hand. "We probably should, but I can do it," he offered. "Alec doesn’t need me to talk to the Aunties about a fortification charm, or whatever you want to call it. If you take him over and come back, you can go with Izzy, I'll watch Lindsay and Magnus can make a portal so Alec can come back in time for curfew."

"If you really don't mind?" Alec told his _parabatai._ "Izzy's right… knowing what Lindsay's up to would be good."

"Sure." Jace was tossing up his dagger and catching it. "Let's say I'm still officially out with you, but I'll sneak into our tech node and keep an eye on what she does. Then hopefully she won't keep back because she feels watched."

_Calgary_

Breakfast was coffee and pancakes, served to him in bed. With his wound healed to a variety of different degrees, no one – including the Aunties – seemed to expect him to exert himself. Maybe that also was connected to him tearing something open again with his ill-advised coughing fit the day before.

In any case, it probably was for the best, since he had to admit to himself that just sitting up in bed was exhausting right now. Between the blood loss and the energy sap the healing had taken, he felt like he could have gone right back to sleep the moment he had cleared his plate.

The charms barely affected the taste.

"Why are there runes on the pancakes?" was the first thing he'd asked when Katie had brought the breakfast tray.

"Charms," she'd corrected. "And they're not on the pancakes, they're in them."

"Why are there charms in the pancakes?" he had asked, squinting into the coffee to determine if any charms had gotten in there as well. He saw what looked like the ghost of one, but wasn't entirely sure he wasn't imagining things now.

"You can read them, can't you?" Katie had asked. "You tell me."

He could. Healing, Strength, a variation on the Healing rune… "You don't adjust runes like that."

"You do if they're charms."

He shook his head. Katie picked up a pancake and ate it, as if to prove it was safe.

Hodge took the fork and, still hesitant, tried a small piece of the regular Healing-pancake.

It tasted like pancake. Pancake with a slight flavor of rune, he amended after a moment. It wasn't a flavor he could have described if asked. Maybe the best way to approach it was to call it a metaphysical flavor. "Do they actually work like this?" he wanted to know.

Katie nodded, her grin promising that there were plenty of stories hidden in this subject. "Oh yes," she confirmed. "They work. So in this family, you want to check what people feed you if it's something that can be shaped, poured or otherwise charmed. Especially if you pissed anyone off."

"Have I?" He probably had, since Jace and the others had probably filled everyone in on what he had done.

Surprisingly, she shook her head. "Not yet, no. Auntie Gwen made most of these pancakes, and they're pretty nicely charmed. I think she actually likes you." He could hear her grin when she continued, though he kept his eyes fixed on his plate as he attacked the rest of the pancake with his fork. "Back when your friends first arrived here, we ended up with an epidemic of electively visible pancakes because some of the younger generation thought it fun to use that glamor rune you have in the kitchen. Also, Jack liked the taste of it, and it's not like most family members can't see them."

He wondered if she was joking. He would have leaned towards 'yes', but he wasn't certain anymore. He took what seemed like the safer route.

"Your cousin Jack who could take on the Silent Brothers?"

"The same." Katie got up from where she had once again made herself comfortable on the edge of his bed. "Hate to leave you, but I do have to get to work. I'll be back later."

He looked at her with a confused frown. "Work?" What kind of work would these people do? Somehow, with the limited exposure he had had to them, he couldn't imagine them as some kind of Shadowhunters.

Her smile suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking. "I'm a real estate agent," she told him. "I sell houses. And I do have client appointments. I'm only here now because someone called to reschedule while I was getting breakfast."

"How convenient," he commented.

"Yes," she said. "That's how it works for us. I'll be back later."

She reached over to give his arm a quick pat, then stood and turned to leave.

Silly, he told himself. Of course she hadn't been almost about to kiss him goodbye. Whatever made him think such an idiotic thing?

He focused on getting the rest of the pancakes out of the way before he could actually start to wonder about why he didn't think he would have minded if she had.

 

_New York_

Luke chose a niche towards the rear of the room to sit down with their group.

"Did Maia talk to you?" was the first thing he asked.

Alec nodded. "That's not what we've come to talk about, though."

The werewolf looked a little relieved, though his expression turned to one of guarded apprehension almost immediately. "Is Aldertree giving you any trouble?"

"No more than he has to," Alec said. "He's holding up his part of our deal quite nicely."

Luke gave a low growl. "He'll do anything to not have his crimes exposed in a way he can't talk his way out of."

He wasn't even talking about the murder Aldertree had committed on his girlfriend at the time. Eva had been a werewolf after all, and Aldertree had never denied killing her. Coming up with some story about why he had lied about the details of how it happened wouldn't have been too hard.

There had been the subsequent murders of several Shadowhunters he had been working with, however. And those would warrant an examination by Truth Sword – in particular since one of those men was, in fact, still alive and willing to testify.

"One day, he'll pay for it all," Izzy assured Luke. "But right now, this is the only way we can continue to work somewhat freely and be sure they won't try and separate us."

"Right now, we're assigned to tracking our recent demon problem to its source," Alec added. "We were wondering if you could help us with some input there." He summarized briefly what they knew, along with the way they had tried to track the demons.

Luke listened without betraying what he thought of it all.

"Have you come to ask me for a wolf to help you with the tracking?" he asked when Alec was done. "It may be difficult to convince anyone. Working closely with Shadowhunters has never been that high on anyone's to-do list, and with Aldertree in charge, it's gotten worse."

"And whenever word gets out of how werewolves happened in the first place, it'll be worse still," Izzy agreed. "We weren't going to ask that."

"Though I like the idea," Jace noted. "Do you think Maia might…?"

"I don't think she's going to agree to play bloodhound for you, but you can ask her. I won't tell her not to if she says she'll do it." Luke turned back towards Alec. "So what was it that you needed?"

The younger man leaned back in his seat. "An idea of how much more time we have before this gets impossible to conceal from the mundanes. We're having near-daily attacks right now –sometimes twice a day even. They'll have to realize something is going on at some point."

The werewolf nodded thoughtfully. "It's lucky that the mundanes _want_ to believe in mundane explanations," he said. "Anyone willing to look past the obvious and consider the shadow world might exist would have long gotten suspicious. We've had a few callers tell us they think it's demons, or ghosts, or mind control causing these recent incidents. So far, these are just isolated cases – and they're not being taken seriously, of course."

"What does the police think about the attacks?" Clary asked.

"They're different enough that no one has connected them yet," Luke told her. "As far as they're concerned, this is an unrelated string of incidents. A lot of the cases have just been declared accidents and not investigated any further in the first place."

Alec inclined his head slightly, indicating that he understood. "What about the downworld? Have you heard of any attempts to mess with the wolves? Or any other group? I imagine 'call in a Shadowhunter to help' is not the first response most downworlders in New York would have to demon problems right now."

"I'll ask around." Luke glanced at the time and then looked at each of them in turn, his gaze lingering the longest on Clary. "I'd invite you to have lunch here, but if you're officially on patrol, you probably ought to get going again. Being in one place for too long will raise suspicion."

"Being in one place to question some werewolves to see if they know anything about the demons is going to be acceptable," Alec returned. "But you are right. We should be on our way. You'll call if you hear anything?"

 

_Calgary_

He nodded off again, which had nothing to do with the charms and everything with his body having used up all its remaining energy to eat.

Someone had been in and out of the room while he was asleep. The tray was gone when he woke up. The window was open, letting in fresh air. There was a pitcher of water and an empty glass on the bedside table, along with a couple of energy bars.

Since his body was clearly taking the suggestion of all those charms seriously and throwing every bit of energy it could get into healing, he picked one of them up and turned it in his fingers for a few moments, before resorting to using his teeth to help him rip off the plastic wrapping. There - Who needed two hands anyway?

The door – not closed all the way to begin with – inched open some more.

"You awake?" the man on the other side asked.

"Yeah." Not admitting to it would have been silly. "Come in?"

His visitor complied, closing the door behind him.

Hodge, used to gaging people in combat, couldn't help but notice the carefully measured, precise movements. This man knew exactly what he was doing with his body. He was perfectly balanced at all times, the habit so ingrained that he didn't need to think about it. He wasn't very tall, nor excessively muscled, but with a controlled strength behind every motion that almost made him itch to invite him to a sparring match. That might be interesting – an actual challenge that the young Shadowhunters he had trained weren't even approaching. Their weapons' trainer from the moment they joined the institute, he knew their fighting styles, their strengths and weaknesses inside and out.

Of course, there wouldn't be any kind of sparring. Not only would it be extremely improper – but even after his most recent wound had healed, he was still going to be short a left hand. He needed time to adjust his technique to that.

"Hi." The man pulled up a chair and turned it around before sitting down on it, his hands on the backrest. "I'm Graham. You probably have questions."

That was not the opening he had expected. "About what?" he asked, carefully.

Graham shrugged and vaguely gestured around the room before returning his hand to its previous position. "This. Us. Anything." He seemed amused. "See, I'm a Gale by marriage. There were some… unfortunate confusions during my first stay under this roof. Everyone would really like it if those didn't repeat, and since we don't know when your friends will be able to get away from their work back home to fill you in – here I am."

Hodge studied the man. There was a design he didn't quite recognize right there in the middle of his forehead. It had some resemblance to the rune they used to lock their storage boxes, though.

"You have a rune – charm – on your face there." He gestured with what remained of his energy bar.

Graham acknowledged the statement with an inclination of his head. "Was that a question?"

His mouth busy chewing, he nodded. It might not have been the most polite solution, but his body demanded food and it was by far the most convenient way of getting his hand free again.

"It's one of Allie's," Graham said. "Allie's my wife. She put it on me the first night we were together. It's a protection, kind of."

Hodge swallowed. "Kind of?"

Graham grinned. "It says, for all intents and purposes, 'mine'."

He got a confused frown for that. "Yours?"

"Allie's. It's her way of saying 'hands off – if you hurt him, I'll know why'." He gestured at the remaining energy bar. "Go ahead. I've been at the receiving end of those healing charms, I know what it's like."

Hodge decided that was all the invitation he needed. At least, having been wrapped in plastic, the energy bars couldn't have any charms on them. Could they? "And this is a threat people take seriously?"

His visitor gave a curt nod. "They do, mostly. She has the power to back it."

He wouldn't have thought that someone as casually predatory as Graham needed that protection. "So what do you do?"

"I run a newspaper."

Hodge almost choked on his food at that answer. "You what?"

"It's not a very good newspaper," Graham said, entirely unfazed. "In fact, it's the kind of newspaper no one in their right mind would take seriously. We report on things like Yeti sightings, undines drowning people, Charlie's sisters brought back material for a wonderful six-part series on the vampires in the catacombs under Paris from their last trip… that kind of thing."

The kind of thing that most mundanes wouldn't believe in anyway. This made slightly more sense. Slightly.

"You're not just a reporter, though."

"Journalist. I actually do have a degree in journalism, you know." Graham sounded amused, not offended.

These people certainly didn't do things half-way. Hodge used the energy bar as an excuse to delay his answer, waiting to see if Graham would volunteer more information. He'd said he was there to answer questions, not produce more of them!

"I used to be a sorcerer's assassin," Graham ventured. "Before I met Allie. I used to dispatch of anything that came to threaten him. He paid for my education and gave me a job. It was his newspaper. When he died, I took over running the paper. I don't do the assassin thing anymore."

"Could have fooled me," Hodge muttered. "So _what_ are you?"

"I'm just a guy," Graham said, sounding entirely serious about it. "I'm the seventh son of a seventh son, which apparently gives me an edge in some areas. Such as apparently being the first outsider male in memory – living or otherwise – to anchor a Gale circle. I've kept my combat training up a little – it's a good idea to be fit when dealing with Gale men in the circles and before ritual. I've just really stepped it up again when the kids – I mean your friends – showed up last year. They make for interesting training. They had a good trainer."

Hodge briefly lifted his left arm off of the bed. "There's a bit less of the trainer than there used to be, but what's left of him will probably need a sparring partner once he's back on his feet."

"That'll be interesting." Graham didn't seem to have any problems with the principle. That was good.

Reminding himself firmly that he didn't even know that he'd be here for long enough to try his hand at combat again, Hodge changed the subject. "So, how did your ex-employer the sorcerer die?"

"I shot him."

Simple as that. There was no guilt in the statement, no regret, not even the slightest hesitation. He could just as well have said "I had supper."

"Then Jack ate him."

"Jack ate him?" It took a second for that information to register. "This isn't Katie's cousin Jack, right?"

Graham's grin suggested that this was exactly the reaction he had aimed for. "The same. I guess he was hungry."

Suspicion dawned. "Jack isn't – he's not a werewolf or something, is he?"

"No. He's not a werewolf."

Hodge did realize that Graham hadn't said what Jack actually was, but he wasn't sure he was up to exploring that right now. "The confusion you had when you first met these people – that wasn't about your employer, right?"

"Right." The accompanying sigh suggested that Graham would have preferred to pursue the former line of conversation. "It was about choice. It's… when the time comes that you need to declare your choice, make sure you don't say anything unless you know what you're doing. I almost lost Allie because I rashly said something when I had no idea what I was doing. The thing with the Gales is…"

Graham launched into a lengthy and not entirely unconvoluted explanation that made only limited sense to Hodge. The content was clear enough, and so was living in a community that adhered to strict rules about relationships. He had absolutely no idea why the man thought he needed to know. It wasn't like anyone was going to ask him to declare that kind of choice. Who'd ever want to invite a proven traitor into their family?

*

"Would you consider moving – at least for a little while?" Cameron Gale looked at Samuel, who was picking at his plate without much of an appetite.

It had been Helen’s suggestion that all of them – Shadowhunters permanently in residence in New York, Magnus, the young warlock and the younger Gales who were their neighbors – met for brunch to discuss what they were going to do about the issue of having probably just turned the High Warlock into an enemy.

Ideally, Alec and the others would have been there, too. After giving the subject some thought, they had decided to not ask Charlie for a trip through time to make it possible, and instead settled on discussing their results with the man they considered their leader even if he was spending most of his time in a different country right now, once they had some sort of plan to present.

Samuel had arrived looking worn and tired. Though Magnus had helped him fortify the wards on his home the last night, he clearly hadn't slept well – or possibly at all.

"Surely they can find me wherever I move," Samuel said.

One of the twins gave him a grin that was nothing short of predatory as she speared a sausage on her fork. "Second thoughts about changing sides?"

The warlock shook his head. "No. Just about trusting that they wouldn't be interested in coming after me because I'm not enough of a resource for them."

"Did they?" Magnus wanted to know. He had loaded scrambled egg onto a piece of buttered bread and was enjoying the rich taste of the herbs Helen had used on them.

"No." The younger man looked even more subdued than he had. "But I was jumping at shadows all night. I'm just—"

"That’s why I was about to ask you if you wanted to join us, at least until this has blown over," Cameron interrupted him. "We have space, we don't charge a lot for a room – at least not if you do your share of the house work – and any warlock would think at least thrice before messing with a house full of Gales in full power."

Cameron had been the leader of the Third-Circle Gale men until that day the last fall when he had handed over his position to Alec. Since Alec had little experience in Gale matters and no interest in running the circle, the two men had come to a quick and easy agreement: Cameron continued in his previous position, taking care of all the day-to-day business it entailed. Alec would anchor Third Circle in ritual until challenged by someone else, and would endorse anything Cameron decided towards the Aunties at need.

If the old women objected to their arrangement, they didn't say anything about it. After all, Cameron had tricked Alec into taking over the circle, albeit in a moment of desperation, and they didn't know of any other third-circle male who could have handled the amount of energy their new friends brought to Ritual.

Well, Jack might have – but as a half-dragon, Jack was far too dominant and powerful for them to be comfortable with letting him take that position. As a wild power, there also was no way to be certain that Jack would be home for ritual.

No one so far had dared think too closely about the fact that Alec, too, might not always be able to come over for the event – or that they had no idea how things with his quartet would develop in the first place.

"Why would you do that?" Samuel sounded genuinely confused.

"You helped them yesterday," Cameron pointed out. "It's not a huge hardship for us, we have space, everyone would appreciate someone else to share the chores and our rent reduces if we have someone else to help pay for it."

Originally, the Aunties had bought the building and rented the basement apartment to Cameron, while the upper floors had housed an ever-changing parade of unattached Gale women from Cameron's list, and then also from Steve's list when Peggi's son had moved into third circle.

As more family members had moved West to join them on a permanent basis, that had changed a little. By now, the house had turned into something of a communal living space for those family members who didn't fancy living with their parents anymore but couldn't afford or simply didn't want to find a place entirely of their own. Gales did thrive on contact and proximity after all.

They were no longer limited to third circle, either, since Melissa Gale had come to the conclusion that her dorm room didn't suit her needs anymore. Elessar had spent a lot of time there after that, and one day he simply hadn't left. By now, Melissa and the Seelie knight were a firmly established couple and squarely in second circle together.

"I like the idea," the twins declared, speaking up almost at the same time.

Magnus snorted at that. "I'm sure that would be most educating for Samuel," he determined. "Nevertheless, I approve as well. They're right. No one's going to mess with you while you're there. You can hone your skills and improve your defenses until you feel confident you can keep yourself safe. And you can even continue to do your work. I'm sure they don’t mind some brewing in the house."

"Only if it doesn't stink up the entire apartment," Cameron cautioned. "There was that time when Ashley tried to make that pimple potion…"

"That what?" Samuel looked appalled.

"To make them go away, not to make them come on!" Ashley told him. "And it really was just one anyway."

"The number doesn’t matter!" Cameron shot back. "Nothing was worth that kind of smell!"

"Beauty really can be a pain." Aline was grinning as she spoke.

The young man stabbed his fork roughly in her direction. "You know what's the worst?" he asked. "The pimple in question wasn't even on _her_ face! It was on her guy's."

Magnus raised an eyebrow at him. "And what's wrong about a guy who cares about his appearance?" he asked.

"Nothing! As long as it doesn’t turn my home into a biohazard for three days."

"You could have just brewed it for me when I asked you to," Ashley said unapologetically. "I told you I didn't have the time to watch it nonstop, and he was going to cancel that night's event – which I'd been looking forward to for weeks, which you knew."

"Did the date happen?" Helen inquired. She was biting her lip to keep a straight face.

Ashley shook her head and her sister took over.

"It didn't," Carrie told them. "The smell wasn't just in the house, it was also in Ashley's clothes, and her hair and – just, everything. It really did take days to get rid of it."

"I'll try not to stink up the apartment," Samuel said before anyone could ask any more questions about what had become of Ashley's relationship. "But aren’t you supposed to kill warlocks?"

"Sorcerers," all Gales present corrected as one.

"Same difference?" Samuel asked.

Cameron sighed. "By Gale definition, a sorcerer is a Gale gone bad. Someone who starts to accumulate power and goes from guiding to forcing the change he wants to happen. Someone who tries to control and rule. Since we raised them, taught them, trained them, it's also our job to kill them."

The details of that were also knowledge that wasn't openly spread within the family, let alone outside of it. It had been the encounter with the Calgary-resident sorcerer Stanley Kalunchyk, who had been born Jonathan Samuel Gale, that had made those who had joined Allie by then understand just why the family was so adamant that no sorcerer was allowed to live.

Thanks to the presence of that sorcerer's son Jack among them, and his status as a Gale by birth, the information had spread within the younger generations of the family since.

"We can help you move your things this afternoon," Cameron continued, changing the subject again. "Let's see if his highness Elessar will actually deign to help, too."

"I can manage," Samuel protested weakly.

"You may be able to, but you don't have to," Ashley cut in before he could elaborate. "In this family, we help each other. Now – Magnus, what are you planning to do about the High Warlock?"

Magnus gave her a nonplussed look. "Nothing," he declared. "I'm not going to mess with her unless she tries to mess with me or mine. I don't have the time for warlock power games right now, and I hope she got the message yesterday."

Something like relief appeared on the Gales' faces. Sorcerers were about seeking power. Had Magnus declared that he was going to seek the woman out and challenge her to wrest her position from her, the Aunties would most likely have had something to say about that – and it wouldn't have been comfortable for anyone involved.

"Let's talk about what we can do to keep them out of this street so we have some space where no one needs to keep looking over their shoulders," Magnus continued. "I thought I'd talk to David later and ask his opinion on having some sort of shield on it – and maybe the park."

"You'd lock them out of Nose Hill Park entirely?" Samuel sounded surprised and didn't seem quite certain what he thought of the idea. "But that's one of the best places to collect potion ingredients! You'll ruin the brewers."

Magnus favored him with a thoughtful look. "Hardly. They can collect elsewhere, or they can buy. Sure, the power source in the park makes for particularly potent stuff, and David doesn't hurt either – but it would be more of an inconvenience than an actual danger to anyone's livelihood."

"Who's David?" Samuel asked.

"A Gale," Cameron told him. "And that is as much as you need to know now. I'll tell you the rest this afternoon – or we'll never get done with anything else right now."

*

Graham hadn't been gone for long when the door opened again, a hand knocking against the frame.

"Hey." The man standing there looked about Hodge's own age, with a head of ginger hair and a number of visible charms on him. The hand he had raised for the knock bore a copy of the one on Graham's forehead. "We're about to run to the store. Anything special you want for lunch?" His accent had a decidedly Irish quality to it.

"I'm good," Hodge said. "I'll eat whatever there is."

The man in the door laughed. "Wasn't worried about that. I was more wondering if you'd be wanting something uncharmed to have on the side."

Hodge joined in with a chuckle of his own. "I wouldn't mind some more of these." He waved the empty energy bar wrapper.

"I'll see what I can do."

Did these people ever close a door all the way?

It took only a few minutes before Allie – or the woman he assumed was Allie – showed up with the desired items in one hand and a vase with a large bouquet of flowers apparently freshly picked from a meadow in the other.

"Joe says you're hungry," she said instead of a greeting as she put the energy bars down within his reach and put the flowers where he could see them. "And Lyla sends you these."

"And Lyla is..?"

"Ten years old, very excited that we have another _guest_ and determined not to miss out on it this time. She's Rayne and Lucy's daughter – cousins. Technically, her father's Roland, who's another cousin." Allie unceremoniously sat down on the edge of his bed. "I also had to promise her to give you another healing charm."

Hodge's mouth twitched into an amused smile. "Then let's not make a liar out of you." He shifted a little, suppressing a groan when a wrong movement pulled on his wound unexpectedly.

Surprisingly, he could feel the power of Allie's charm seep through his skin and settle in the deeper layers of torn and cut tissue.

"Wow."

"If your own people weren't so intent on getting you dead, you could be healed by now." The displeasure was clear in Allie's voice.

"I wasn't entirely without fault in that," Hodge pointed out. It probably wasn't the smartest move to remind her of his crimes, but it took too much effort not to say it. The Silent Brothers had made sure he never forgot for the shortest moment.

To his surprise, she shook her head. "You have no idea what I mean," she said. "And it's not our place to tell you. Your friends will explain it."

Actually, he felt like she was going to tell him anyway if he asked. Unwilling to pursue that line right now, he looked for another topic. His eyes came to rest on her belly.

"How far along are you?" Maybe that wasn't the politest thing to ask, but it was hopefully a good diversion.

She didn't seem to mind. "Just entering the last third." A smile and a sigh both accompanied the statement. "I wish I could just skip those months. I do remember the last two times, and this set seems to have decided to be the most active yet."

"Set? Twins?" he guessed.

Allie gave him a nod. "Five and six. One more after this. Apparently the universe requires Graham and me to produce the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son of a Gale, and we're not allowed an opinion in this." She sounded weary, but her eyes gleamed. She didn't mind nearly as much as she wanted it to seem like. "Edward and Evan have their room down this hall, so there's a risk they'll get curious and end up paying you a visit. You can tell them to get back into the living room if they're getting too much."

He blinked. She didn't seem to actually be concerned about her sons wandering into his room. "Allie," he said, hoping that he had guessed at her identity correctly. "I'm not exactly the kind of person most people would trust alone in a room with their offspring. Forgive me, but your sons can't be …" He tried to guess her age.

"They just turned four," Allie said. "Adam and Arthur will be two in a couple of months. _Are_ you going to harm them?"

"No."

"Are you going to kidnap them and try to blackmail me with them?"

"No."

"Are you going to teach them anything that will kill them?"

"No!"

"See? No reason not to let them be in here, unless you don't want them to – in which case you can send them out."

He took a breath that was about as deep as he dared to inhale right now, then let it go again when he realized he didn't actually have anything to say. He couldn't find any fault in her logic.

"If you hear odd noises from upstairs, don't worry," Allie continued, as if she hadn't even noticed. "That's Michael and Brian or their contractors fixing up the next floor so we can add some more rooms to the apartment. We're running out of space. Michael's my oldest, best friend, and Brian's his husband. They're architects."

Hodge filed the information away. "Graham runs a newspaper, Katie's a real estate agent, Peggi is a pharmacist, Michael and Brian are architects. Got it."

She beamed at him as if he had just mastered a particularly tricky exercise. "Charlie's an itinerant musician but has her base here, Roland's a lawyer and the junk shop downstairs is mine."

Yes, clearly these people all had some kind of relevant profession. He wasn't quite sure how the itinerant musician factored in, but for all the power Allie emanated, he guessed the junk shop at least wasn't as straightforward as 'just a junk shop'. He knew some junk shops in other cities doubled as a point of sales for magical supplies and arcane items. He was going to go with that assumption for the time being.

"What if I hear any odd noises from _downstairs_?" he asked with a smirk.

"Then you _should_ worry." Allie said, matching his expression. "No, actually there's a coffee bar under this room, so don't." She pushed herself to her feet. "Joe's about to come up with the groceries. I better get started on lunch. Be nice to Katie, Hodge. She likes you."


	11. Chapter 11

_Calgary_

Their afternoon planned and with a tentative list of steps to be carried out in order to prepare for whatever the High Warlock might come up with next, but without issuing any definite challenge to her, Magnus took his leave early. He hoped to finish the work his clients expected from him before it was time to help Samuel move.

In his mind, he was already going through some spells they could use to make it seem as if the young warlock's place continued to be inhabited, which would hopefully keep anyone watching it busy for long enough to get bored of the task.

He had just stepped onto the street when a familiar voice called out to him.

"Magnus?"

Turning, he saw Chris close the front door behind him before he hurried to catch up. He waited, uncertain of what to expect.

Chris seemed uncertain of how to begin as well. "I… About yesterday. I mean…" He stopped, took a breath and sorted his thoughts. "Thank you for coming to my help," he said then.

"Think nothing of it," Magnus returned nonchalantly. "It was my fault for drawing the High Warlock's attention to begin with. It was the least I could do to make sure no one else suffered for that."

Judging by the young man's expression, he disagreed. "They're going to keep coming after me," he said. There was no accusation in his tone. It was a statement of facts, nothing else.

Magnus inclined his head slightly. "Probably. We'll do what we can to discourage them."

With a sigh, Chris closed his eyes for a moment. "Would you… would you take me back as your student? If I promise to do everything you say and not give you any more trouble? I can't rely on it that you and the others will always be there to help me, and—" He broke off, looking more than a little lost. "I just saw yesterday that my weapons aren't quite enough against a group of them."

"Chris." Magnus reached out to place one hand lightly on the man's arm. "I'm not angry at you for quitting. And I'll gladly take you back as a student. But even so, magic isn't going to be a perfect solution. You'd need centuries of training to be able to take on a group like that unsupported. Magic will give you a tool, and a weapon, to use, but it has its limits."

"It'll be one more tool than I have now," Chris said. He was visibly clinging to his resolve. "Can we focus on defense? And maybe getting away – can you teach me how to portal?"

For a moment, Magnus thought of Madzie, four years old and throwing up portals as if it was nothing. On the other hand, Madzie had been trained in the use of her magic basically since the moment she'd been able to reach for it.

"We can try," he said. "But portals are advanced magic. It's unlikely that you'll be able to use them before you have mastered a good part of the basics."

Chris swallowed visibly at the thought of having to learn a lot of magic before he could get around to learning the thing he perceived as the most useful for him right now. His lips were pressed into thin lines before he spoke again. "Then please, let me know when we can start."

*

Lunch started with soup and followed up with a generous helping of roast and vegetables, served to him by Holly and Wendy, who were Gale cousins, had just turned fifteen and brought their own plates to keep him company while he was eating. Katie, they said, had called to say she wasn't going to be back before supper. Someone had precut his portion already, but he didn't have it in him to insist that he could cut his own food right now.

Instead, he listened to the two of them alternatingly telling him about some of the more amusing things Alec, Izzy, Jace, Clary and Magnus Bane had been up to in this part of the world.

He pleaded exhaustion before dessert rolled around and bit back a grin when they very dutifully fluffed up his pillow and tucked him under the quilt before leaving.

 

_New York_

They arrived at the boat house at a brisk jog. They weren't quite on time for their meeting with Simon and Maia, but that couldn't be helped. Since they were unable to enter the Wood from the Institute directly without any risk that someone might notice their odd mode of transport, they had had to get creative.

Luckily, finding the spray paint Luke had given her for her last birthday had reminded Clary that graffiti was, in fact, a kind of art. With that insight, she had found entrances into that in-between dimension all over New York. She had even sprayed a couple herself, in places that weren't likely to be painted over or destroyed. She could sense her own work from distances where a stranger's would be invisible to her.

The problem remained, however, that they couldn't just walk into a wall where someone might see it, and even glamored they didn't want to risk it before the eyes of a mundane if they didn't absolutely have to. Today had been one of those days where everyone seemed to have gotten a sudden urge to be out and about just where they were waiting for a moment of peace to get going.

Eventually, with Alec safely dropped off in Calgary, Clary had returned, and the two women had done their best to make up the lost time.

The door to Simon's living space opened at Clary's touch. Both Simon and Maia glanced up at them and smiled, though neither of them raised a hand from the game controllers they were holding and working on furiously.

"Just a moment," Simon said, sounding distracted.

Clearly, the two had made the best out of the wait.

Izzy walked around to sit in Simon's armchair, from where she could watch the game, while Clary carefully closed the door again.

"Who's winning?" she asked as she joined the others.

"I am," Maia declared matter-of-factly.

"Only because I let you!" Simon claimed. "Being a vampire gives me superior reflexes! I'd beat you easily if I didn't go extra easy on the game."

His girlfriend laughed, the carefree quality of the sound suggesting that this was a kind of banter that went on often between them and wasn't taken seriously by either of them. "If you didn't go extra easy on the controller you'd crush it in your superior vampiric grip. You've ruined three already, and a wii-mote," she returned.

"We don't talk about that." Simon turned his head just far enough to give her a happy grin.

The small moment of distraction proved to be all Maia needed to finish the round.

"Queen of videogames!" she declared. "That's who I am." She put the controller down before her and looked at the two newcomers. "Any chance we could interest you in a round?"

"I don't know," Clary told her. "We're supposed to be working…"

"It'd be honing your reaction skills," Simon told her. "It's really, really good for that."

Izzy was studying the screen curiously. "Maybe," she allowed. "After we've taken care of what we came for, though. Imagine if Alec comes back from Calgary and finds us playing video games before we're done with our duty – or if Jace calls us in as backup and we have to admit we didn't get anything done before that because we were playing."

That brought a frown to Simon's face. "Backup for what?"

"He's keeping an eye on Lindsay," Clary informed him. "We'd like some more input on what she's up to, and she's got every reason to assume none of us are in the institute this afternoon."

Putting his controller away as well, Simon turned the desk chair he occupied to face them. "Alright then. What did you need from me? Also, do you know any kind of charm to make sure no one carries dirt inside? Especially if they're walking on paws instead of boots?" He was pointedly not looking at Maia as he said the last.

"Running as a wolf does have some advantages sometimes," Maia claimed.

The inside of the boat house was gleaming with charms. While neither Simon nor Maia were able to create their own, their friends had happily provided every enhancement for Simon's accommodation that any of them had been able to think of.

"I'll do it," Izzy promised, rising again to return to the entrance. "That reminds me, though – did you hear back from your friends?"

"Not yet," the werewolf said. "Are you hungry? We have pie."

Izzy finished applying a design to the floor and stood back to scrutinize her work. "You'd think eating nothing but pie for two weeks would have cured us of that. But it hasn't. I'll gladly have some."

"Same." Clary had made herself comfortable in the spot her friend had vacated moments earlier. "You'd think with the number of pennies they hand out, they'd run out of pie sooner or later."

"Maybe they're happy to have an excuse to make more pie." Izzy made a shooing motion, causing Clary to scoot sideways just far enough so she could perch on the arm rest of the armchair.

"Making pie is for Gales what retail therapy is for us." Clary pointed out. "Thank you." The last was directed at Maia, who handed her a plate.

Simon studied his own pie thoroughly before he picked up his fork. The wonder of being able to stomach mundane food again wasn't going to wear off any time soon. Even though it wasn't enough to keep him fed, just the ability to enjoy the taste again, and to sit at a table and share a meal without standing out were things to be welcomed.

"So," Izzy said between bites. "We had this situation with one of our demon trackers yesterday. It worked fine for the first few minutes, but then the signal kept cutting out. It reappeared a few times, and eventually it was gone. One of our working theories is that maybe some kind of mundane radio device may have interfered with the signal. You know more about mundane technology than we do…"

She let the thought hang in the air while Simon had clearly started to think. "It's not impossible if something else was broadcasting on the same channel," he decided. "But you should have caught part of that signal then – not just silence."

"Look," Maia said, a dark look on her face. "Back when the inquisitor had me chipped, they didn't have any issues tracking that signal. They would have noticed if it'd suddenly been lost or had bouts of not broadcasting. I don't know what your issue is, but I'm pretty sure it's not something acting as a jammer."

"Could someone be blocking it on purpose, though?" Simon asked.

They shook their heads. "They shouldn't even know about the chips."

Except that the first two demons had gotten away with tracking chips inside them. It wasn't entirely impossible.

Izzy sighed. "Please don't kill me for this," she began. "But we were talking to Luke earlier, and something he said made us wonder… could a werewolf track a demon by scent?"

Simon looked confused for a moment, not sure why Izzy expected any kind of anger at the question.

His girlfriend, however, caught on immediately. "We're no tracking dogs." Her voice was hard as steel. "Demons leave a scent trail if they're moving on the ground, but we aren't Shadowhunter toys and we're not –" She broke off at the touch of Simon's hand on her arm.

"I know," Izzy assured her. "And I didn't mean to imply as much. It's just that we're running out of options…"

Maia looked at her, then at Clary, and finally at Simon. Then she nodded towards the computer. "If you beat me at Call of Duty, I'll consider it as a last resort."

That offer brought a frown to Clary's face. She was about to object to it as being unfair, but Izzy had already slid off the arm rest. "Done," she agreed. "Show me how it works?"

 

_Calgary_

A plate of lemon meringue pie was waiting for him when he woke up again.

Half-way through, Auntie Gwen turned up. She didn't bother to knock even on the open door, but merely waltzed in and handed him a mug of liquid with the unmistakable order to drink. He glanced at the charms in it and downed the contents in one gulp under her disapproving stare.

The moment his plate was empty, another older woman showed up, wearing the same perpetually displeased expression that Gwen had favored him with and handed him another mug. He assumed that this was another Auntie, and he suspected that she liked him better than Gwen did. Her potion tasted like strawberries.

The itinerant musician paid him a visit as soon as Auntie number two was safely out of the way. She was actually carrying her guitar. Her hair had a red and a blue streak in it.

"You're Charlie," he observed when she turned around to face him. She had actually closed the door behind her. Considering that she was on the inside, he wasn't sure that counted.

She nodded. "Your deduction skills haven't suffered," she observed. "Are you okay, or do you need a song for the pain before we talk?"

"With all the healing I've gotten today, it barely hurts anymore at all," he claimed, not quite truthfully.

He seemed to be bit more transparent than he had thought. "Liar." She sat on the edge of his bed and leaned her guitar against it next to her. Apparently she wasn't going to force the song on him.

Remembering the day before, he almost regretted it. Her music had been a great painkiller, and as the day drew on, the little movements he couldn't really help were adding up into a near-constant reminder that he had had twenty-five centimeters of steel plunged into his body.

"We need to talk about Katie," Charlie came directly to the point. "Back when Allie and Graham first met—"

He raised a hand, cutting her off. "There was a misunderstanding and some confusion on Graham's side, and he nearly messed up permanently. He talked to me first thing this morning."

"Oh." Charlie's expression softened somewhat. "So you know."

"I know I can't use the words 'I choose' unwisely in this place," Hodge confirmed. "I don't think it will be a problem. I won't accidentally choose anyone."

Charlie looked about to say something but ended up merely shaking her head mutely for a moment. "Katie likes you," she said finally. "Be good to her."

Somehow, everyone seemed to feel a need to tell him that. True, she had apparently liked him well enough to stay and give him comfort that last night, but surely there was a difference between compassion and – well – what they seemed to be suggesting.

"I don't – I'm not expecting her to—" He forced himself to sort his thoughts and his words. "I wouldn't abuse your hospitality. I have… more restraint than that."

Charlie sighed deeply.

Had he misinterpreted her meaning? He felt himself blush.

"You have a lot to learn about Gales," Charlie determined. "Now, do you want a song after all?"

He was tired again, and the throbbing in his wound had taken on a quality that would probably keep him awake. He nodded, not challenging the sudden end to the conversation.

Charlie's tune eased him into sleep. He didn't see if she closed the door behind her on the way out.

*

Alec had listened to Aline's report and nodded his approval. Everything their group had planned seemed sensible enough. He didn't like the situation with the High Warlock of Calgary, and if they had been aiming to establish an official Shadowhunter presence in the city, he should have found her and insisted that she agreed to keep her hands off of his people.

As it was, however, their presence in Calgary wasn't only unofficial but also very much unsanctioned. The list of things they were going to get into trouble for if they were ever found out seemed to be growing with every day.

In fact, at this point they could expect a general deruning if their activity here became known.

The thought made him rub a hand over his _Enkeli_ rune. No matter how wrong the idea felt: he had started to wonder if a deruning wasn't actually the worst thing that could happen to them. They'd be free of the tie to the Angel and free of Clave control.

Of course, it couldn't be that simple. Deruned Shadowhunters usually didn't live for very long. Without their enhancements, they quickly fell prey to demons and downworlders out for some Nephilim blood.

Usually, however, deruned Shadowhunters had no charms.

They'd been toying with the idea of having the Gale Aunties try and remove at least some of their runes to see what would happen. Uncertainty about the wider repercussions of that had kept them from going through with it so far.

That subject occupied his mind all the way from Macewan Glen Drive to the Emporium, where he was going to meet with the Aunties to discuss ways for making the tracking chips more resistant to demon ichor. Apparently, the First Circle was staying close to keep an eye on their guest's progress.

Instead of walking through the store, Alec took the back entrance, crossing the magically enlarged yard behind the house on which a variety of cars were parked. The charms on the door recognized him. The lock clicked as he touched the handle and pushed, and the door swung open easily.

Out of habit, he glanced at the mirror that hung in the corridor leading to the stairs. He was used to seeing himself with a pair of glossy black wings towering over his shoulders by now. Apparently, the magical mirror was in a mature mood today, rather than being its more common adolescent self: it hadn't stripped his reflection to his bare skin.

It had, however, given him a distinctly martial air, his clothes turned into armor and a set of blades on his belt that he was sure he didn't own and that looked eerily alive. His expression, too, was nothing short of feral.

The mirror, it appeared, expected Alec to set out on some sort of violent mission. Given their current demon problem, he was afraid it might be spot on.

As he turned away from it to climb the stairs, he thought for a moment that his back was tingling slightly from his shoulder blades down almost to his buttocks – roughly along the lines where a pair of wings would have to merge with his body.

He shook his head. He had to stop playing with the mirror if it made him imagine things like that.

*

Charlie opened the door before he could reach for the handle.

"Come on in!" she told him. "They're waiting for you."

Of course they were. It was entirely impossible to enter Calgary without Allie knowing. If he'd been able to surprise anyone in the Emporium with his presence, something would have been very, very wrong.

"How's Hodge doing?" he asked her. A glance past the Bard told him that all four Aunties were assembled around the table, along with Allie, Jack and Joe the Leprechaun.

"Confused and scared," Charlie told him. "Maybe don't tell him I said the latter. I sang him to sleep a little while ago. You should probably wake him up and answer some questions before you leave, though."

"Will do," Alec promised. "But if he's sleeping now, I'd like to get business out of the way first. I don't want to keep everyone tied up here for longer than I have to – I'm sure the ladies have things to get back to."

He nodded in the direction of the Aunties at his last words.

"At least one of the young people shows some consideration for the busy lives of others," Auntie Bea determined. "Let's hear how we can help you then, Alexander."

Alec sat where Charlie pointed him, accepting a cup of coffee and a plate of lemon meringue pie.

"Thank you for making time for me," he said, looking at the four of them in turn.

Auntie Carmen made an indulgent sound. "It's rare enough that someone your age actually remembers to ask for advice from those with more experience," she declared. "Of course we're making time for you. Let's hear what your problem is."

The other three nodded, while Allie rolled her eyes. Alec was sure that at least Auntie Bea was sitting at an angle at which she could see it, and he was equally certain that Allie was aware of it – which meant she had intended just that.

"So we have run into this issue in New York," he said without further ado. He gave them a short description of their demon problem and their tracking attempts. "We were thinking that if it really is the demon ichor interfering with the chips, what we need to handle the issue is something like whatever you put on the phones to make them indestructible."

"They're not strictly speaking indestructible," Jack said calmly.

The Aunties glared at him. He pretended not to see it.

"I've seen them flushed down the toilet and tossed off of bridges," Alec pointed out. "And I remember Melissa said something about dropping hers in acid by accident once, and the most difficult thing about it was getting it out and wiped off enough to not burn her hands on it."

"Dragon fire destroys them," Allie informed him.

The demons probably were not made of dragon fire on the inside, and Alec said so. The Aunties considered his words in silence for a few moments.

"I'm not sure that we can help you," Bea finally said. "For one thing, it's not a single charm. The process of making those phones is very involved… the charms are all tied together and interact. You can't just take one of them out of the mix and use it isolated."

"They need to be applied in a specific order and in layers," Trisha continued. "The only one that works on its own is the one that ties the phone to its owner."

Carmen nodded. "And frankly, none of you have the skill or the experience with charms at this point to attempt anything that intricate. And those chips must be tiny, too."

Alec confirmed this, holding up his hand with thumb and index finger spaced apart to indicate the size.

All four of them shook their heads. "There's no way we could fit the charms on that – even if you brought us some of the chips so we could take care of the rest," Bea said. "I'm sorry, but charms aren't a magical heal-all solution for every problem there is."

"We didn't think that," Alec hurried to assure her. "But we wanted to have all options covered. Now we know not to put any more time into this line for the moment." He deliberately avoided using the word 'waste'.

"Let us know if there's anything else we can help with." Gwen sounded disappointed about their inability to make any viable contribution. "I agree with your assessment that it sounds as if someone is siphoning off emotional energy – and I can assure you that most magic using that kind of power is not the kind of magic you want to encounter."

Alec perked up at that. "What's it used for?"

"The usual," the Auntie said. "Emotional energy is powerful. Raw emotion has power, but directed emotion means an entirely different level of strength. You might be facing a necromancer…someone trying to enslave minds… someone trying to give themselves powers they don't have and shouldn't acquire… all kinds of things, and none of them good."

"They're already controlling demons," the Shadowhunter pointed out. "They're already playing with power they shouldn't have."

Jack leaned forward in his seat. "That Valentine guy had a demon-controlling device and used it to attack you before. Do you figure he might be behind this?"

"No." The answer came immediately. "This is harming his lot as much as it is ours if we can't keep it contained. The attacks aren't run against us or against anything that might help us learn more … I think." He made a mental note that they should go through all the attacks again under that angle, however.

"You brought a demon-controlling device back with you from the other dimension," Auntie Bea reminded him. "Why don't you use that to catch and question one of the demons?"

Alec blinked. They hadn't even thought of that. He, at least, hadn't. The fact that they actually had a copy of the Mortal Cup at their disposal was something so incredible that he had trouble wrapping his mind around it at times. But still… "I'm not sure we dare take our Cup to New York. If anyone spots us with it, we're in trouble that we won't be able to wriggle out of. And as far as we know, questioning demons is tricky even under the best of circumstances."

"Capture a demon, bring it here, question it in peace," Charlie suggested.

"I'm not sure we can, without using the Cup," Alec admitted. "But it may be worth a try. We'd need someone who can portal, though. We surely can't drag a demon all the way through the Wood, and Clary's portals still leave behind a guidepost to where we went."

"Call me whenever you need it, then," Jack offered. "In contrast to Magnus, I haven't been banned from New York. I should be able to come and give you a hand."

Alec gave him a thankful nod. "We might just do that," he said.

"You should," Bea agreed. "And now, I think you should talk to the young man in the guest room. He needs some answers, and he needs to hear them from someone he knows."

*

He woke with a start. It took him a moment to sort the bits of his dream – doubtlessly inspired by his recent non-conversation with Charlie Gale – from reality, and another one to comprehend that he wasn't alone.

There was someone sitting on the side of his bed. Again. People here weren't very good at using chairs, it appeared.

Except that this wasn't even a Gale.

This was…

"Alec."

Alec Lightwood grinned down at his former weapons' trainer. "Hodge. You have a sound sleep."

"I think that's Charlie's fault," Hodge muttered as he carefully maneuvered himself into a slightly more upright position. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"Clary took me through the Wood," Alec said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. "Charlie's going to take me back later if Magnus doesn’t have the time to make me a portal before curfew." Now that sounded as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do to ask the High Warlock of Brooklyn to stand in for an airline.

On the other hand, of course distances and time meant nothing to Charlie. She had gotten him out of his cell and into the future.

Alec interrupted his train of thought before it could take up speed. "Hodge, we need to talk."

"Okay." He forced himself to keep from crossing his arms protectively in front of his chest or drawing the quilt closer around him. This was it then. Alec would lay down the terms and conditions for his future life. If he was lucky, he'd have some semblance of freedom again that he'd know to be just another prison in which he could still be useful to the Shadowhunters. If he wasn't it'd be back to the Silent Brothers.

Some part of him realized the latter didn’t make much sense, but he couldn't help the thought.

Alec shifted a bit, apparently not sure where to put his own hands either.

"We know what our parents did," he finally announced.

Well, that was unexpected as openings went. Hodge waited.

"Maryse, Robert, Jocelyn. Both in the Circle and to you, after. What you said to Jace – we did some research, we did some math."

He had told Jace the Lightwoods had blamed some of their crimes on him, which ended up getting them a ridiculously light sentence, and him banished and bound to the New York Institute. The institute they ran. Where they could control him and make sure he would never get anywhere with it if he tried to set the record straight. Which he probably couldn't have done without killing himself first through the sheer intensity of pain from the cursed rune. The rune that was gone because Valentine had taken it off.

He felt guilty for still feeling thankful for that.

Alec had been studying the pattern of the quilt. Now he raised his head just enough to look at Hodge. "We can't make what they did undone. We know we can't fix sixteen years of torture."

Hodge was about to say something, but Alec stopped him with a gesture.

"It's true that we only thought of you when we were trying to figure out who might be able to help us with _our_ plans. For all that we knew, you were dead. Death isn't something you can usually do anything about. If anyone tells you that getting you here was an idea borne in a discussion about how to get information we need about Valentine, they're right. But that is all there is to it. It gave us the idea. If you want to join us, at any point in the future, we'll be happy to have you. If you don't, we'll respect that. If you choose to leave, we won't go looking for you. We can't give you away if we don't know where you are."

It sounded like Alec had spent some time thinking about all the things he could be saying, and providing answers before the questions could be asked.

"Can we take it one step at a time, Alec?" Hodge asked, trying to not look amused at the young man's monolog. "I'm still processing the fact I'm no longer in a cellar cell and have apparently suddenly acquired a life again that I might be able to actually do something with. Also, this place does take some getting used to. These people are…. different."

Alec laughed at that, and he looked very much like the boy he had trained for a moment, rather than the man he had seen the day before. "They really are, aren't they?"

They have rubbed off on you, Hodge thought. He couldn't imagine the Alec from before just settle down on his old trainer's bed.

"I don't think I've had as much as ten minutes of being awake and alone today. It's… new."

"We should have told you yesterday." Alec looked a bit embarrassed – if at the oversight or because he was actively contributing to the situation was impossible to tell. "They're very close. They thrive on contact. They will leave you alone if you tell them to, but you do have to tell them to actually get out and stay out, and then they'll still hover because you might let them back in. It's how they work. It's all about sticking together." He pointed at Hodge's arm. "They also leave charms on everything and everyone."

Hodge twisted around to look. There, in the spot Katie had touched that morning, not impossible for him to see, but definitely requiring some effort on his side, were the clear outlines of a charm.

His eyebrows went up. "Seriously?" he asked.

"It means—", Alec started.

"For all intents and purposes, mine." Hodge said, quoting Graham.

Alec made a wordless 'there you go' gesture. "It isn't even one of Allie's."

"You can tell?" That was interesting. He'd have to pay more attention. "It's from Katie." He paused, frowning. "Why would she write 'Mine' on me?"

Alec favored him with a look as if he'd just said something too inane to warrant any kind of verbal response. Then he reconsidered. "I think she wants right of first refusal."

Now, that didn't help in the least. "What would she want to refuse?"

"Not hers, yours."

It was probably time to change the subject. "Why don't you have any charms on you if they mark everyone?" He hadn't meant for it to sound that accusatory.

Luckily, Alec didn't seem to take it badly. He actually laughed, licked his hand and moved it in a complex pattern over his cheek as if wiping away a particularly stubborn smudge.

The glamor flickered, revealing another Alec – the real Alec – beneath. There were charms on his hands, on his neck visible over the collar of his t-shirt. Some were overlapping. One very like the one Graham wore stood between his eyes. Seen side by side, Hodge could – not exactly actually _see_ , but perceive the difference.

Alec pointed. "These are from Allie. This one's Charlie's. This is Jace's. There's one from Izzy on my back, but undressing now would be weird. This here's from Jack. The others are my own. Oh." His grin turned into a happy smile as he touched the central one on his face. "This is Magnus'."

"Glad that's working out for you." That was also something Hodge was going to need some time to process. The last time he had seen Alec before his ill-advised flight from the New York institute and his subsequent capture, the young man had just blown off his own wedding by kissing the High Warlock of Brooklyn before the assembled guests, his bride left alone by the altar.

He turned his attention to the slightly less confusing matter of Alec's new markings. There was a charm laid on top of the deflection rune on Alec's neck, tracing the old lines. The same was true for every other rune he could see, with one exception.

Noticing where his eyes rested, Alec touched the Angelic Power rune on his left forearm. "We don't charm these over. We don't know what it might do." He sighed. "We don't know for sure what it actually does to begin with."

"What do you mean?" It was the first rune most Shadowhunters got, symbolizing their tie to the Angel Raziel. What was there not to know about it?

The smile faded from Alec's face. "Hodge, we have learned a few things – big things – that you need to know about."

"Okay." Hodge said, shifting a bit on the bed. This sounded big, but Alec was still young, and many things seemed big when you were. "Like what?"

"Like that our runes – or rather, the way we apply them, our steles – are made so that every application shortens our lives. We bring ourselves a little closer to death by weakening our tie to this world every time we apply one."

Hodge stared. "That can't be! Shadowhunters have—" always done it this way, he had been going to say. "What else?"

Alec indicated his charms. "We're raised to never question we need the stele, and by the time we grow strong enough that we could do anything relevant, we're so used to the thought we never even try."

"What would happen if a Shadowhunter never used a stele?"

A shrug accompanied the answer. "We don't know. We don't have any nephilim at hand who have never used a stele. We can only guess. Based on us, our best guess at this point is that nephilim growing up to use their power on their own would end up closer to warlocks than Shadowhunters. Or, in other words: Gales. Or something very like Gales. Since we know we're not precisely identical in ability, we're most likely descended from a different … entity."

He had clearly been looking for a word there, discarding whatever his first choice or two had been.

"They – Gwen and Katie and Allie – were talking about damage done to me that kept them from healing my wound immediately." He hadn't understood what they were referring to at the time, but now he suspected he had found the answer.

"Auntie Gwen and Auntie Bea developed the potion that reverses the damage, or mostly reverses the damage. They are taking it a bit personally that you're not reacting to it as quickly as we did, but you didn't stop using your runes after you came to our institute, so you have about sixteen years more accumulated damage than we did."

"You're calling them your aunties?" This may not have been the most relevant piece of information Alec had just imparted on him, but it was what Hodge's mind seized on.

Alec snickered. "Glad that that's the most shocking thing you can find in what I just told you. Think of it more as a title and less as an indication of relationship or a term of endearment. Definitely don't think of it as a term of endearment. Even the Gales don't use it that way."

That he could do. Another thought rose to the top of the mess going around his head right now, and he seized it. "What about Shadowhunters who were deruned and banished? Wouldn't they revert to… whatever… Almost-Gales?"

The answer came so fast that they must have given these issues some serious thought before. "One: We don't know what damage the deruning does. We know it's excruciatingly painful, but we don't know what it _does_ beyond that. Two: What's the longest you have ever heard of a banished Shadowhunter living out there?"

True. Without the protection of their organization, without the runes, the weapons and the stele, they were easy prey for every creature that wanted to get revenge on a Shadowhunter. They never lived for very long.

So far, all he had for these rather outrageous claims was Alec's words. There was something about them, though, that rang true. "Who knows about this?"

"Izzy, Clary, Jace. Simon and Maia. Magnus. Luke. Mom. Friends here in Calgary. You now. We thought it wise to not spread this until we know more."

Wise was probably an understatement. The corner of his mouth twitched. "But you thought it _wise_ to inform a proven traitor?"

"Hodge." Alec's voice suddenly sounded almost icy. "If I ever hear you refer to yourself that way again, I will make you regret it."

Hodge met the younger man's eyes. They were very much Alec's eyes, but the confident, determined look in them was new. "Is that a threat?" he asked.

"That's a promise," Alec said. "Speaking of promises – Jace couldn't get away, but he is beating himself up over the thing with your hand. He wasn't in the best of places at the time."

That drew a snort from Hodge. "None of us were. Tell him I'm expecting him over sometime in the near future. I'll probably be a very boring training partner until I figure out how to compensate, but he may as well come and help me fix what he broke."

"I'll let him know," Alec said. "Maybe not in those exact words."


	12. Chapter 12

Alec had actually asked him if he should close the door on his way out.

Hodge had surprised himself by declining.

Maybe, he thought, it was a bit like how your body stopped feeling hungry if you didn't feed it for long enough. It might still be craving food, but it would forget how to interpret the feeling.

He'd been starved of company that wasn't connected to his work for so long…

He spent some time mulling over the things that Alec had told him.

He was almost glad he couldn't touch the charm on his arm with his remaining hand, or he might have accidentally wiped it off.

Auntie Gwen brought him another potion.

Allie brought him some more pie.

He listened to the sounds coming from upstairs, renovation work clearly underway there.

"Hello, stranger."

He turned towards the door. A young man stood slouched against the frame. Other than 'young', his age was impossible to determine. His hair was a little lighter than that of the other Gales, but the family resemblance was unmistakable.

"My name's Hodge."

"I know." His visitor smiled, in the careful way that said he was trying not to scare anyone and lifted the plates he carried. "I'm Jack. Mind if I come in? I have pie."

"Not at all."

Graham's movements had looked all the more dangerous for being so casually predatory. There was nothing casual about Jack. Whatever else he was or wasn't, something about him screamed apex predator. For a moment, Hodge wished he had his weapons at hand – just in case.

"You'd think we'd get tired of pie some day," Jack observed as he handed over one plate and started on the piece on his own. "But we really don't. Auntie Marie sent this one. She's not as heavy on the charms as some people."

The words were accompanied by a happy grin, and Hodge revised his earlier thoughts. In spite of the first impression, he really couldn't imagine Jack literally eating Graham's former employer. The statement had probably been meant metaphorically then.

"You'd think there'd be no space left for more pie at some point," Hodge offered. "But I seem to be able to eat indefinite amounts of it today."

Jack chuckled. "You're burning through it so fast because the charms put the pie right into healing. That'll even out when you're done with that."

"I don't think there's a healing charm in this pie," Hodge observed, focusing on the taste. There was a delicate but noticeable difference in flavor in the same not-quite-real way in which the charms applied by different people had a different appearance. Like the other Gales, Jack was covered in charms.

"There are plenty on you, though," Jack pointed out. "I would offer you another one, but I don't think it'll make much of a difference anymore, with the ones you have stacked there already." He patted his own shoulder roughly in the place that mirrored Hodge's wound.

Hodge finished up the pie and put the plate aside. "Tell Auntie Marie that her pie's delicious when you next see her."

"I will," Jack said, his eyes shining with amusement. "But that might take a while. Don't know when I'll get to Ontario again."

"Ontario?" Hodge wasn't entirely sure about Canadian geography, but he didn't think that Calgary was anywhere near Ontario.

"That's where Auntie Marie lives."

"She sent pie from Ontario?" That couldn't be right… Could it?

Jack nodded solemnly. "So if you open the fridge and there's a line of charmed pennies in it, leave them where they are. There'll be pie soon enough. Don't take them out. A load of sticky pastry in your pocket isn't something you want to happen while you're out."

He wondered if Jack spoke from experience, suspected that he was having him on anyway, and decided not to press the issue just in case. "Thank her from me when you talk to her then."

"Sure. Anything else that I can help you with?"

Actually, now that Jack mentioned it…

"How far's the closest bathroom? You do have bathrooms, right? You don't use charms for that or anything?"

"No," Jack said. "That would be weird. It's a few steps up the hall on the other side. Need help getting there?"

"Probably," Hodge muttered, trying to gage his own condition. That morning, he wouldn't have even thought of getting out of bed under his own power. Now, after about three quarters of a day of assisted healing, he thought he might manage.

Jack stood and gave him space to work his way to the edge of the bed and swing his legs over it. "Take it slowly, then, and don't faint on me. Allie might just kill me if she finds out, and then Katie will find a way to bring me back to do it all over."

"I have no intention of fainting." Hodge didn't push away Jack's helping hand as he straightened, though.

"Make sure your body knows," Jack suggested. "Since I don't want to be killed, I might have to eat you to get rid of the evidence if it happens."

Hodge couldn't help himself. "Like you ate Graham's employer?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Seriously," he said. "Eat your father once and you'll never hear the end of it."

"You what?" Hodge blurted out.

Without missing a beat, Jack adjusted his hold on Hodge, shifting until most of the older man's weight rested on him. "He was an evil sorcerer. He was going to kill me. He had a knife at my throat. Graham shot him. I was hungry."

"So naturally you ate him." It was supposed to be sarcastic, but Jack nodded.

 

_New York_

Jace had made sure he'd been seen leaving the Institute with Alec and the others. Once they'd been sufficiently far away, he had thrown on his Seelie cloak and doubled back, silently slipping in through one of the side entrances.

His route took him through the basement, where, as expected, he met no one.

The cloak, which masked him near-perfectly while he remained in motion, came off and went into the bag he carried the moment he reached the stairs leading up onto the ground floor. Seelie magic was best outdoors, and the last thing he needed was to set off some kind of alarm because the cameras caught someone cloaked in the corridors.

He silently slid into their tech node and put down his bag. Out of it came a number of objects that he distributed strategically around the room. If anyone came in and caught him here, he was going to claim that he'd been setting up a secret little meeting with Clary away from everyone else. That idea had come from Ian and Francesco's use of the node, of course.

As soon as he was sure that he could credibly throw out anyone with a tale of having a date in here in a couple of hours and needing to do some more preparatory work, he settled before the screen. Pulling up the camera feed wasn't difficult, though getting the computer ready so that he could conceal his actual work at the push of a single button took him a moment.

He tried his commands once, making sure they worked. He'd never been that interested in the computer, and his skills were just enough for what he was planning.

The first cameras he targeted were the ones in the main IT room. Lindsay wasn't at her desk. He tapped through the other cameras in the room, checking the different angles to see if she was talking with one of her colleagues at another work station, and came to the conclusion that she was absent.

Pulling up the camera for her bedroom felt uncomfortable. He promised himself that he was only going to have a quick look around to see if she was there, and to back out again immediately whether she was or not.

To his relief, the room was empty, the door to her bathroom open and the space behind it dark.

He set a flag for the cameras in the corridor on either side of her room to alert him if anyone walked past. While that was probably going to give him a number of false alarms, it would surely inform him if she returned to her room, without making it necessary to go back into it.

He checked the mess hall next, then the kitchen, then the library, where he saw Underhill and Youngwolf working at adjacent tables.

There was a command that would have made the computer pinpoint her location, but he didn't dare use it. The four of them had set up warnings to be alerted if anyone was checking out their whereabouts. If Lindsay had any sense at all, she'd have a similar alarm running.

Considering her line of work, he thought it safe to assume that she did.

He started switching through the cameras, first in sequence and then randomly, hoping for Gale luck to kick in. One thing was certain: She didn't seem to be working on her assignment from Alec.

It took about twenty-five minutes before he spotted her, hurrying through a corridor. Going by her direction, he suspected he would have found her before if he'd thought to look inside Geoffrey's room. At the same time, he was quite relieved that he hadn’t. He really didn't need to see whatever the two had been doing, and looking into Geoffrey's bedroom wouldn't have been any more comfortable than looking into Lindsay's.

His hands flew over the buttons as he switched from camera to camera, following her along her way. He suspected he knew where she was going within a few turns. Another command split the screen, and he pulled up the feed from Aldertree's office while still following Lindsay.

Sure enough, their head of institute seemed to be waiting for someone.

He smirked. Hopefully, Lindsay was in for a good scolding. He almost regretted that the feed didn't come with sound.

The woman reached the door and knocked, causing Aldertree in the second part of the screen to look up and open his mouth, presumably to call her in.

As she entered, Jace brought the second feed into focus.

The young woman stopped in front of the desk, her posture just a little tense.

Aldertree looked up at her, with an expression that was just a little disapproving.

Unable to tell what either of them was saying, Jace took out his phone and aimed it at the screen, hitting record in the camera app. Maybe someone among their friends knew someone who could read lips.

On second thoughts, he didn't think that would work anyway. The angle didn't seem to be good enough. Still, they'd have some evidence that this meeting had taken place.

Lindsay wasn't offered a seat. She remained standing before the desk throughout the interview.

It was too bad that Aldertree didn't seem too angry at her delay. His expression shifted from slightly annoyed to almost neutral, and Lindsay didn't appear to be uncomfortable.

*

They were talking for the better part of half an hour. Jace found himself wondering just how much space the Gale phone had to record as he started to feel the strain of holding the device steady in front of him. That wasn't a type of exercise usually involved in combat training…

Just as he thought he would have to find a different solution for pointing his camera at the screen, Aldertree's expression changed again. He was smiling now. Lindsay nodded at him, straightened slightly, and turned to leave.

The phone turned off once again, he switched his focus back to the other section of the screen, following her to see what she was going to do next.

This time, she headed for the IT room, where she took possession of her desk and started up the computer.

Activating the camera behind her, he took a glance at her work. As it appeared, she was now starting to do what she'd been charged with that morning.

Jace wished that he'd brought something to read. Watching Lindsay screen upcoming events and their locations and comparing them to a checklist wasn't exactly very entertaining.

He was just getting bored enough to consider actually decorating the room some more and suggesting to Clary that they use his setup later, when he noticed a change in the Aldertree feed.

A glance at it immediately made him enlarge that part of the screen.

Aldertree had gotten company again – and this kind of company boded absolutely no good.

He snapped a picture of the screen, rather than recording a video again. With Lindsay, knowing that she'd been talking to Aldertree might have been enough. This meeting was different. He needed to know what they were talking about. There was only one way he could think of to achieve that without walking in on them – and he wasn’t sure that their hold on Aldertree was good enough to survive that.

He turned off the screen and quickly stuffed everything he had distributed in the room into his bag. Leaving things behind wouldn't do…

A charm sketched on the cover of a ventilation chute brought the panel down easily. He shouldered his bag and climbed inside, clinging to the maintenance ladder and carefully folding up the panel again. It snapped in place, requiring him to put a NightSight charm on his eyelids. It made no difference. The inside of the chute had no light source, and the NightSight needed at least some light to work with.

Retrieving the small piece of witchlight he wore on the charms bracelet Magnus had given him last Christmas remedied that issue.

As fast as he dared, and carefully making sure he wasn't making any more noise than was unavoidable, Jace started to climb.

 

_Calgary_

"I wouldn't actually have eaten you, Hodge," Jack said when he settled him back in his bed what felt like several hours later. How could such a short trip be so exhausting? "We have strict rules here about not eating anything you can have a conversation with."

"You can't have a conversation with me if I'm unconscious." Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to point that out.

Jack snorted.

Was there a plume of smoke rising up from his nostrils?

"What are you, Jack?" If the answer he got was 'a Gale', he'd let it stand and not pursue it any further … for now.

Jack looked away for a moment, and Hodge wasn't sure if he was going to answer the question at all.

Then he turned back, and his features had changed. His eyes were black rim to rim, the vertical scar down the side of his face much more pronounced than it had been before. By comparison, the other scar, half-moon shaped on his cheek, looked faded. The angles of his face had changed and settled into something not quite human, and his entire body looked wrong in jeans and a t-shirt with ripped-off sleeves and frayed hems.

"You're … a Downworlder?" Hodge asked, surprised. He wasn't sure quite what he was looking at. "Seelie?"

Jack shrugged, the motion inhumanly fluid. "We say Fey, not Seelie. We say charm, not rune, hex instead of curse and UnderRealm instead of Downworld. By any other name, I guess. Call me Seelie if it makes you happy, though I'm not part of the Court." He put his glamour back on and became the young Gale man he had been before. "I spent time there to study, couldn't go back for the next eighteen years even if I wanted to."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm there now. Studying." It sounded like it should have been obvious, which it wasn't.

His confusion must have shown on his face, because Jack took pity on him.

"We had a bit of a problem and not enough time to get me trained. I signed on with the Court for twenty years two years ago. They trained me. Then Charlie got me back from the future, and we fixed the problem. So now I'm here and there."

"If you spent twenty years there, you must be…" Hodge tried to do the math.

"Officially I'm nineteen," Jack said, indicating his young human face. "Technically, it's more like thirty-nine. It's not like it matters. Dragons are pretty damn immortal unless you kill them, and I'm probably at least longer-lived than your average human."

"How do the dragons factor into this?"

Jack looked like he was enjoying himself now. "My mother is a Dragon Queen. Which technically makes me a Dragon Prince. Except I'm not really interested in the title. I like living where people aren't trying to eat me. And I like having Charlie. So I'm a half-Gale, half-Dragon. My father the evil sorcerer was a Gale turned bad."

The eating suddenly turned a lot more literal again.

"So you and Charlie…?"

"Yes."

He updated his mental list.

"How many of you are there?"

"I think I'm pretty unique as half-dragons go," Jack said.

Hodge almost rolled his eyes at him. "Gales, I mean."

"In general, or here in Calgary?" Jack asked. "Because we have a lot more of them in Darsden than we do here."

"Let's stick with Calgary."

"Well, we still only have four Aunties, which means there's only one spare; David; then there's Allie and Graham, Roland, Rayne and Lucy, Peggi and Tim, Judith and Dave, Tammy and Randy in second circle. Melissa recently crossed, but her partner isn't a Gale. Then we have Charlie and me in third, because we're not actually crossing, and also Katie, Cameron and Steve, and Robert. And their lists. Those are the girl cousins loosely enough related to them to be potential breeding partners." He added the last when he noticed Hodge's confused expression. "Then the younger children of the second circle couples, but those don't really count yet. And then there's the adopted family."

He was going to need a notebook to keep all of those people straight. "They're not all living right here, are they?"

"Katie has a condo of her own, though she rarely sleeps there. Rayne and Lucy and Roland live in the house my father had. That went to us after his death. It's cool because it has a big pool in the garden. We use it when we have to get the entire family under one roof. The house that is, not the pool. We also have property along the park on Nose Hill, where most of our people live, and the park itself is not exactly ours on paper, but might as well be, because we've anchored in it." He took a deep breath. "Auntie Gwen lives in the apartment over the garage with Joe. Joe's our resident leprechaun. He works in the store. You can tell him apart from everyone else by the red hair."

"I might have met him this morning then," Hodge said. "He seemed a little tall for a leprechaun, though."

That sent Jack into a flurry of giggles. "He's a changeling, and he IS a little tall for a leprechaun. He's also heartily tired of hearing it. He was the first outsider Allie adopted into the family. Graham was the second, and I was the third – we didn't know yet at the time that I was actually a Gale, too, you see." He paused. "Actually, I guess technically Michael was the first outsider Allie adopted into the family."

"Michael whose husband is Brian, who are architects and renovating the next floor up to make space for more rooms." Hodge guessed.

Jack nodded. "Michael and Allie go back all the way to kindergarten. More recently, we got Dan, who's a telepath Charlie's been helping get some control over his power. He's living with the Aunties because Trisha has an eye on him, but I think he's still not quite sure he's ready for that degree of commitment. And then your kids showed up last year."

Hodge refrained from pointing out that they weren't his kids. "So do you usually adopt everyone you meet into the family?"

Jack actually paused for a moment. "No," he said. "Back in Darsden, the family's very exclusive. Very few outsiders get access. Allie bringing Michael into the family was unusual, but not entirely unheard of. The whole thing with letting in the Fey is new. I think it's because Allie's not your usual Gale."

"How's that?"

"Well…" Jack seemed to actually listen to check if anyone – or Allie specifically – was eavesdropping. "She's the only Gale girl currently alive who has no sisters. They're usually very close. She's always had to fill that empty space, and she's done so with cousins and with non-family – like Michael. Then she rooted this branch of the family here in Calgary six years ago, and in a way, she defines what this family is. Open to anyone who'll join it."

Hodge carefully poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. Eventually, he couldn't draw out the answer any longer. "I'm sure there are limits to that."

Jack had clearly been waiting for it. "Allie married a man who spent half his life working as an assassin for a sorcerer. You'll be just fine, Hodge."

"I'm not planning on marrying Allie!"

That got him another smoke-accompanied chuckle. "Good. Katie would probably disapprove."

 

_New York_

Jace hadn't gone far when he started to wonder if he was still proceeding in the right direction. The ventilation shafts were barely labeled on the inside, and the junctions all looked alike.

Eventually he pulled another pendant from his bracelet – this one a tiny compass and Magnus' birthday present to him. Fixing the layout of the institute in his head, he used it as a reference of where to turn.

Twice, he had to stop because he heard people beneath him. Freezing, he waited for them to move on, mentally urging them to walk faster. He needed to get to Aldertree's office quickly. He couldn't waste any time while someone was laughing and joking out in the corridor!

It seemed to take an eternity before he drew close to his destination. For all that he knew, Aldertree's guests had already left.

Moving slowly, carefully avoiding any sounds, he crawled forward until he lay on his belly, his face just inches from the ventilation grille.

His own breath and heartbeat sounded impossibly loud in his ears

They were still there, though. He could hear them talk.

He carefully set his phone to record and pushed it close to the opening, hoping to catch as much of the conversation as he could. Then he crossed his arms in front of him, rested his head on them, and merely listened.

"…this point, I only have the expendables on duty hunting those demons," Aldertree was just saying. "But if this continues much longer, I will have to request reinforcements from Alicante. Whatever is going on there, it's killed a good number of my people and injured a lot more so far."

"We cannot let you have the Cup." That was the voice of Nicholas Nightshade, speaking with Valentine's inflection and tone to the point where Jace thought he could have identified the speaker in spite of the differences that came from using another body's voice box. "We cannot risk losing it again. It needs to stay safely under lock."

"Right," Aldertree said, the single word dripping sarcasm. "You think I don't know that you have been carrying it around to play with?"

"Careful," Robert Dearborne's voice added. "You're not in any position to pose demands. You haven't exactly been delivering."

Aldertree bristled. "I'm doing what I can. I can't be too obvious, can I now?"

"You submitted a request to keep them in New York and said that you were going to take care of them." Robert's tone was icy. "It's been weeks, and they're still happily traipsing all over New York and doing who knows what."

Ah, Jace thought. So that was what they were doing. Good to know.

"It's only a matter of time until one of the demons gets them," Aldertree informed him. "They're good for that, at least. I've put them in charge of working out where those are coming from, which puts them on the line every day. They've been lucky so far, but their luck can't last forever."

"Luck," Valentine said derisively. "There is no such thing as luck. I'd rather say that someone, somewhere is helping them."

"You keep saying that," Aldertree returned. "But who would that be? You're not accusing _me_ , are you?"

Jace resisted the urge to scoot forward to see if he could look down through the slits to check what the three men were doing. His mind supplied him with a vivid image of them getting into each other's faces as they debated.

"Besides, weren't you planning to get rid of them all months ago? As far as I remember, that didn't work out so well." There was the smallest pause. "And your wonderful plans weren't successful either. All that did was get them a commendation, a certain affiliation with the Inquisitor and a foothold in Alicante that they should never have had to begin with."

"That was impossible to foresee!" Robert returned. "I don't know what happened with them. They never were that … that resilient. They should have turned on each other when Alexander shot Jace in the back."

"Instead, all it did was to bring them closer," Aldertree pointed out. "After the first anger wore off in any case. They should have been supervised all along to keep that from happening. And you—" he had to be turning back to Valentine at that, "without your experimentation, the Herondale boy would still be safely out of commission!"

"He'd find a way to get in the way of things even so," Valentine objected, just as Robert corrected:

"Lightwood. He's taken on Lightwood as his name." He sounded disgusted at the thought.

"What's it to you?" his companion shot back. "You changed yours when you remarried. Let the boy call himself what he wants. Better to have him Lightwood than Herondale. That name carries influence we don't need him having."

There was a snort, then a tentatively approving sound.

"They need to go. They used to be a nuisance, but by now they've turned into a threat. I'll track them down and shoot them on sight on mission if I have to." Valentine's declaration sounded perfectly serious. "They have beaten the odds too many times, and they're turning into an unknown factor that we cannot afford."

Now Aldertree laughed, an ugly, unpleasant sound. "You didn't pay attention and you _lost_ them. You were supposed to keep an eye on them and stall them, and you lost their track and couldn't find it again for a week. You think we'll trust you with a task like that again? I don't know if it's the body that's confusing you or if you've simply lost your edge, Val, but you messed up. Don’t try to gloss it over."

"He does have a point," Robert said.

Valentine must have glared at them, since there were several seconds of silence.

"I'm the one who talks to _them_ ," he said, the emphasis making it clear that he wasn't referring to their quartet. "Never forget that."

"Not for an instant," Aldertree said icily. "If it wasn't for that, you wouldn't have been brought back into the game the way you were. You'll leave those four to me. I _will_ take care of them – when it's an opportune moment and I am certain that they cannot get away _again_."

"Fine." The tone couldn't have matched the word any less. "But don't wait for too long. _They_ might just take it into their minds to handle the matter directly – and I can promise you, none of us want that."

Robert snorted. "Surely our unfortunate offspring aren't going to warrant angelic intervention."

"You'd be surprised," Valentine told him. "Don't underestimate the possible repercussions of what they're doing. They've been digging into some things that have raised alarm bells. They haven't gotten anywhere – we would have heard of it if they had. There's no way they'd be keeping it to themselves if they'd actually found their answers."

"I think _you_ 'd be surprised." Aldertree answered drily.

Suspicion was thick in the other man's tone. "What do you mean?"

"Only that they've apparently learned to keep to themselves," came the smooth reply.

"Trust me on this one." Valentine seemed as confident as ever. "They wouldn't be keeping that to themselves. And then – well, last time someone did this kind of digging, it very nearly ended the Shadowhunters for good."

It was Robert's turn to give a disbelieving snort. "You're panicking at nothing," he declared. "They're not that cunning. But they do need to go. You have two weeks, Victor. If they're still in action after that, someone else will take care of the matter."

 

_Calgary_

Katie came back just in time for supper. She found Hodge sitting on his bed, one twin on either side of him as he read from the book the two were currently dragging around and showing to everyone. She watched for a moment, smiling at the scene, before clearing her throat to make her presence known.

"Edward, Evan, supper's almost ready. Better run before Jack eats it all."

That sent them running towards the large living/dining room fast enough.

"Allie really did ask me to send them over," Katie said by way of explanation as she sat down. "How was your day?"

"Busy." Hodge mentally called himself several kinds of idiot for the touch of disappointment he felt because sitting down was _all_ she had done. What had he expected? To be greeted with a kiss by a woman he'd just met the last night? He certainly knew better than that. "Plenty of your family in and out… not sure I'll ever learn all the names."

"We can make flash cards," Katie suggested. "Though I'm sure you'll pick it up fast enough. Everyone has so far. How's the shoulder?"

"Healing." Having been reminded of it, Hodge had to force himself to not start rubbing at the area around the patch. His wound had started on the stage of abominable itching within the last half hour. "At this rate, I expect I'll be fine in a couple of days."

He wanted to ask her about the charm, but couldn't quite bring himself to say the words. He just couldn't come up with a phrasing that wasn't either accusatory or demanding.

*

Katie stayed for supper. She told him about her work, reiterating some of the stupider things her clients had said and done for his amusement. He listed the day's visitors and the information he had memorized on them to let her confirm he hadn't already mixed people up. She eventually realized why he kept twitching and brushed a charm onto his skin that soothed the itching.

The light touch of her fingertips sent a jolt through him that felt almost electrical.

His sigh was equal shares relief and resignation.

"I think I should call it an early night," he told her.

Katie nodded. "That's okay. I could use some sleep."

She clearly had every intention of staying the night again. The happiness he felt at that was just a bit too much.

He made a mental effort to rein himself in before he let it show. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "Why's that?"

He closed his eyes; considered a few responses; discarded each of them; remembered the multiple warnings he had gotten that day and eventually settled on the truth. He didn't look at her as he spoke. If she laughed, he still didn't want to see it.

"I spent sixteen years with every adult in my vicinity minimizing contact with me as far as possible. I can count the number of conversations I had that weren't with a student or related to my duties. Sure, there was the odd trainee who admired my skill more than usual, but I wouldn't ever have acted on that. I've probably had more physical contact that wasn't part of combat training in the last twenty-four hours than I did in all my time at the institute. Last night – last night, I was too exhausted to think of anything but sleep. Now is different." He paused. "I wouldn't get through this night without embarrassing both of us."

"Then we should get that out of the way before trying to sleep," Katie suggested, her tone level and so reasonable that he wasn't entirely sure that they were talking about the same thing. "Unless you'd rather get it out of the way with someone else."

His head whipped around at that, and he stared at her for a moment. "No! I don't—I wouldn't—I mean—" he couldn't seem to finish that sentence in any manner that wouldn't dig him in deeper.

There was no mockery in Katie's smile as she reached out to cup the side of his face in one hand, stroking her thumb over the double scar on his cheek. "You can tell me to leave, and we'll both spend the night lonely and cold," she said, calmly but with determination. "Or I can make sure that door stays closed until morning, and we can do what we both want."

He started to shake his head, but moving his cheek against her palm didn't exactly help him think clearly. "It's not that simple."

"No, Hodge. It really is. I know you've been warned – probably more than once. This isn't choosing. You can still walk away in the morning. Or any other morning, if you decide this isn't what you want."

That wasn't what he'd been afraid of. She'd said 'what we both want'. She wanted…

He wasn't sure how his hand had gotten into her hair, or how she'd gotten that close, but for a moment, he thought that maybe, just maybe, it really could be that simple. Then he didn't have any space left for thinking. There was absolutely nothing misunderstandable about her kiss.

"The door." Her voice sounded breathless when she broke away, releasing her hold on him and pulling out of his.

With a little distance between them, reason returned. "Your aunties – won't they be angry?" He remembered Gwen's appearance very vividly. Had that only been that morning?

"The Aunties would provide a running commentary and offer advice on how to do it better," Katie said, her hands moving over the lock on the door. "Which is exactly why the door gets charmed shut. And the window soundproofed," she added, briskly walking over and drawing another charm on the fly screen. "While I don't doubt their superior experience, I don't need my performance rated and reported all the way back to Ontario."

This time, he didn't even wonder if she was joking.


	13. Chapter 13

He woke to a warm body nestled against his, fingers gently tracing the outlines of the runes on his chest.

Memory brought a smile to his lips. Who would have imagined the options you had even if you were by necessity staying mostly flat on your back and carefully keeping your left arm out of the way?

"Are you charming me?" he asked, still sleepy.

"Just renewing the ones you already have," Katie said. "Though I could think of a few to add."

"You can add one," he said.

He'd half expected it to be another healing charm put in the general vicinity of one of his wounds.

Instead, Katie chose the spot of unmarked skin at the center of his chest, surrounded by Equilibrium, Agility and Surefootedness runes.

Opening his eyes, he glanced down to see the lines.

"Good Luck," Katie said as she gave him enough space to see. "You need a few charms on you that aren't combat enhancers."

"I wish I could get rid of the one that really isn't," Hodge said, touching the Circle rune at the side of his throat.

"The Aunties can probably take that off for you," Katie said. "We'll just have to ask them."

"I'll probably need the Good Luck charm just to survive my next meeting with one of them," he muttered, pulling her closer against him for a second. The entire situation still felt so unreal that he half expected to wake up any moment.

As if conjured up by his words, there was a demanding rap on the door. "Catherine Marie Gale! You and your man have half an hour to come to breakfast! If he's well enough to dance the horizontal tango with you, he's well enough to sit at the table to eat!"

Katie buried her face against Hodge's chest to stifle a snicker. "Yes, Auntie Carmen!" She called out as soon as she was sure she had her voice under control – and just as the Auntie outside the door started to repeat her knock.

They listened to her retreating steps.

" _Horizontal Tango_?" Hodge repeated. "Who _says_ that?"

"Auntie Carmen, apparently," Katie said, untangling herself with a sigh. "I'll go to breakfast. You don't have to if you don't feel up to it. I'll make sure you get something."

Hodge turned sideways before pushing himself into a sitting position – by far the safer route to keep from accidentally putting any strain on his wounds. "I'll see how far I get. Not sure I can fit a shower into half an hour, but I really should." He glanced at his shoulder. "Actually, I'm not sure I'm allowed in the shower."

"We'll just put a waterproof charm on the bandage," Katie suggested. "Try not to faint in the shower."

He grinned at her. "Or what? You'll have Jack eat me to get rid of the evidence?"

_New York_

"That isn't how you spell 'Jace'." Jace was frowning at the paper cup he had just been handed.

Clary laughed. "It's an unwritten law that all names must be misspelled on these cups at all times."

"Seriously?" He craned his neck to catch a glimpse of hers. "What does yours say?"

She turned her own cup around for his inspection.

"That's rather tame as misspellings go," Jace noted.

"I'm Allic today," Alec informed him.

"I'm Itsy, apparently," Izzy added.

Jace raised his cup towards the others. "To Allic, Itsy, Clarie and Shays then. Let's hope they're better at making coffee than at spelling."

His _parabatai_ gave him a doubtful look. "Considering the names of the drinks, I'd be surprised."

"At least they're unlikely to recognize our names if anyone asks about us," Izzy said.

"They'd have better luck asking if anyone with runes came in anyway," Clary pointed out.

Alec raised a hand, but put it down again before he could cover the deflection rune on his neck with it. "It's still safer than a shadow world location, but let's minimize our time here," he determined. "Jace?"

They had interrupted their patrol to discuss the last day's findings. While the cameras in the institute didn't record any sound, they had found hidden microphones in their home in Idris, and they didn't want to rely on it that their rooms in the institute weren't similarly bugged. At the same time, they didn't want there to be any video footage of them searching or scanning their rooms for hidden equipment.

"I think we've confirmed that Lindsay is working for Aldertree," Jace said. "Which isn't surprising." He carefully sipped his drink. To his relief, the coffee's taste actually was recognizable as the thing he had ordered.

"Yeah," Alec confirmed. "That was no more than we expected. The other thing, though…"

Jace had forwarded his recorded conversation to the others the night before.

"Right. So apparently we have two weeks before the next attempt on our lives." Izzy tried her drink as well. "I prefer the one in the Hunter's Moon," she declared, before continuing: "Which will probably be engineered by either Valentine or our father."

"And if Aldertree expects it to actually work, he'll probably try something before that to get a hand on our documents and our witness," Alec added. "The only good thing in that conversation is that the three of them are apparently not entirely in agreement on everything, and that they're very busy blaming each other for our continued survival. Every minute they spend fighting among themselves is a minute they won't plot on anything else."

"We need a contingency plan, though." Jace had almost emptied his cup already. "We can't just rely on it that we'll survive anything they throw at us."

"Calgary?" Clary asked. "We can always go to Calgary. But we should convince Simon and Maia and Luke at least to come with us."

"If they were easily convinced, they would have stayed there weeks ago," Izzy told her. "Though you have a point – especially if they're going to help us track the demons to their lair." The last was said with a smirk.

"You do realize Maia let you win that game, right?" her friend shot back immediately.

Izzy laughed. "I suspected as much. When all of this is over and she doesn't need to keep up appearances, I'd like to challenge her to a real round, though. That game was fun."

Jace shook his head slowly. "Calgary is safe, but we can't just hide there and do nothing. We'll need to do something about the things we've learned, and we need to stop that trio before they do more harm."

"Don't forget they're backed at least by the Consul's office," Alec cautioned. "If we do anything against Valentine, Aldertree and Robert, there'll be someone else to follow in their footsteps. Someone we don't know yet. Going against them – really going against them – will mean a lot more than taking three men out of the game."

They looked at him – Clary expectantly, the other two with serious, but composed expressions.

Eventually, it was Izzy who spoke. "Going against whatever is behind them means inciting a revolt. Overthrowing the organization the Shadowhunters are built on. Ceasing to be tools of the Angels and finding another, better thing to be. It'll mean throwing away everything we've learned and believed in."

"And if it fails, we die a traitor's death, and possibly worse," her brother added. "And we'll take everyone who has helped us along the way, Mom and Max, and Grandma Imogen, the Redwoods, probably Lydia, all our downworlder friends and who knows how many others with us."

Jace's words were slow and thoughtful. "After all we've found out these last few weeks, I don't see any other way. I can't go on and pretend not to know."

"Neither can I," Alec said. "I just need us to be aware that there's more at stake than just the four of us."

"We are," Izzy returned. "And I agree – we went beyond the point of no return a while ago. We can only go forward from here."

Clary was listening. She didn't object to anything they said, but it seemed that she hadn't quite thought through the implications of what they had been doing – and what they were proposing now – yet. When the other three turned towards her, she gave a nod to indicate her agreement.

Alec closed his eyes briefly to collect himself. "Then here's my suggestion: We spend the next two weeks taking care of this demon situation by whatever means necessary. Then… we leave. We focus on filling the gaps we have and we start building allegiances. Shadowhunters and downworlders alike. Before we do anything big, we need to find a way to prevent a recurrence of that demon plague."

"Which means we have to find a way to prevent the Angels from striking against everyone who knows more than they should," Izzy added. None of them doubted that that was precisely what had happened back then, when a fatal disease had struck apparently out of nowhere and nearly wiped out the Nephilim.

The four shared a long look with each other. They'd known, on some level or another, that this was where they had been moving since the day they had first realized that the truths they had been told were at best incomplete and at worst completely and utterly wrong.

"I'll text Aline and ask her to set up a meeting for this afternoon," Alec said eventually. "They might want to opt out."

Izzy rolled her eyes at him. "You don't really think that, do you?"

"No," her brother admitted. "But we need to give them the opportunity to do so anyway."

 

_Calgary_

They didn't quite make it in half an hour, but they arrived while there was still plenty of food left. Someone – Katie suspected Brian – had left jeans and a t-shirt for Hodge. Katie had given him a scarf to turn into a sling to keep his left arm tucked safely out of the way and his wrist up.

There was a lot of family at the table, he observed, and plenty of people he didn't know yet.

Allie and Graham each had one of the younger twins on their laps, while the older set sat between Charlie and Jack, who kept the worst of the food games from happening. The two Aunties he had met and two more older women, each of them with eyes so dark it was impossible to tell where the pupil ended and the iris started, regally sat at the other end of the table, flanked by Joe the leprechaun and a slim man with grey hair tied back in a ponytail who caught Hodge's eyes for a moment to give him what was probably supposed to be a reassuring nod. Two other men were placed between him and Allie. The chairs facing them were free to be claimed.

Someone poured coffee for both Katie and Hodge, and one of the two Aunties he hadn't seen before handed him a plate of pancakes, the syrup already poured on them.

He glanced at the pattern and hoped he didn't blush.

"Stamina, Auntie Carmen, really?" Katie had seen it, too. "I could find no fault with his stamina."

This, Hodge thought, was possibly not the best topic for breakfast,

"This is meant to help him get through the day, not to support your lack of patience," the Auntie shot back.

"Fine," Katie said. "What do I get?" She looked at her own plate.

"You can charm your own pancakes," Carmen informed her, handing her the syrup.

Katie glanced at Hodge, who had his eyes fixed firmly on the plate in front of him. "Technically, so can he."

"He can?" For a moment, the information took Hodge by surprise. Then he remembered what Alec had told him. "I guess he can."

Katie changed the subject. "Why do we have an entire set of Aunties over for breakfast anyway?"

"Apparently," Allie said with a grin, stopping to butter a piece of toast to take away the jam spoon the twin on her lap had just grabbed and was now waving, "they think someone's going to present someone."

"It's too early to present anyone," Katie declared, attacking her pancake.

"It's almost nine thirty!" Auntie Bea shot back.

Jack sneezed a plume of smoke. Charlie tried not quite successfully to wipe a grin from her face.

Auntie Gwen took pity with Hodge. "We need to approve you as a _potential_ member of family so that you can choose when you're ready."

"Katie, you wrote 'mine' on him. How is that too early?" Graham wanted to know.

"He just got out of bed less than an hour ago. Give him some time!" Katie protested. Her family certainly knew how to do 'impatient'. She knew the Aunties were very intent on enlarging the family branch in Calgary, and far from happy with the size of their family as it was at the time. She was also very well aware of their perpetual disappointment that none of the Lightwoods showed the least inclination of letting themselves, and thus their abilities, be bred into the Gale lines.

"He's right here," Hodge muttered.

Charlie leaned over to refill his cup. "You're taking this surprisingly well," she noted.

He wasn't sure how much credit he could take for that. In the last week, his life had gone upside-down more often than he cared to think about – most of those times through his own fault, admittedly – his mind still felt sore from the interrogation by the Silent Brothers, in a way he wasn't sure was ever going to go away completely, and the few days he had spent in their cell had felt like years, if not decades. Now he had been dropped into a place entirely unknown to him, but instead of crashing, he felt like he was being caught in a safety net, tangible presences constantly around him to take the edge off his pain – physical, mental and metaphysical alike.

The demanding voice of one of the Aunties filtered through his thoughts. "How much pie did he have?"

Now what did that have to do with anything?

"Plenty," Allie said. "Including several of mine, and I _think_ someone fed him one of my mother's."

"That was Jack," Charlie supplied helpfully.

Someone snickered.

Leaning over, Katie gave him a whispered explanation. "The pies are baked with all the good intentions for the family. They certainly wouldn't agree with you if you had anything in mind that would harm any of us. Allie specifically is very protective of the family. If you'd been a danger to us, we would have known all the way back up on the roof."

So the pie had been what? A test? "Does that mean I don't get to have any more pie now that you know?"

Damn, that didn't sound right. He was about to try and fix that, but sounds of amusement all around the table stopped him.

"He's wearing borrowed clothes, and he's afraid there might be no more pie left for him," Auntie Gwen said drily. "Sounds like he barely needs our approval anymore."

"What do you say, young man?" Bea addressed Hodge directly, nailing him with a stare. "Is there anything you want to tell us?"

He didn't think it wise to go any more deeply into the subject currently at hand. One other thing sprang to mind. Maybe it could serve as a diversion. He touched the remnant of his circle rune where it rose over his collar. "Katie thinks you can help me get rid of this."

"I'll assume you're speaking about that hex mark, not asking us to behead you," Bea returned, her voice dripping acid. "Do be more precise when you make requests, though."

"Yes, ma'am," Hodge said "It'd be most kind of you to remove the circle rune from me." Boy, did he sound silly.

"See?" Bea said, turning to the other three. "Sometimes these young people are actually able to remember manners." She stood, walked over to Hodge, squinted at the rune and shook her head before snapping her fingers. "Hand me some power."

Without looking back at what the other Aunties were doing, she slid Katie's scarf off of his shoulder to keep the fabric from getting in the way and pulled at the collar of Hodge's t-shirt to expose the entire rune.

He closed his eyes, steeling himself against the pain that he was sure was about to come.

Cool fingers traced a complex pattern on his skin, following the same lines several times.

"Alysha," Bea said curtly.

He didn't know what Allie was doing, or if Bea's statement had any effect, but there wasn't another word spoken until, the lines repeated once again, he felt a wash of scalding power ripple over his throat as if someone had poured a cup of freshly brewed tea on his skin – except that it didn't actually burn.

It left behind a tingling that remained for another few seconds before subsiding.

"As requested," Bea, already returning to her seat, told him. "In future, think better about what you put in your skin."

Hodge couldn't quite resist the urge to rub the spot where the circle was – had been? It wasn't exactly in a location that he could see without using a mirror. It felt like always, but it wasn't like the runes left any mark that you could actually feel. He looked at Katie, who nodded.

"It's gone." She brushed the crumbs from her empty plate onto his, turned it around and sketched a charm on the back before handing him the now-reflective surface.

*

Magnus snapped his phone shut with a displeased expression.

"It appears," he said as he turned around towards the young people sharing the room with him, "that someone has been discouraging my clients from getting here."

Christopher and Samuel exchanged a glance. Melissa rolled her eyes wordlessly.

Melissa Gale had come over that morning, the young warlock in tow and requesting use of Magnus' lab for some brewing exercise. It appeared that the Gale woman had found some areas in which to improve their new flat mate's alchemy skills, while Cameron had vocally opposed the idea of her tutoring him where he might have to smell the results.

Christopher had come over for lessons, to find Magnus waiting – in vain – for several clients who should have collected their wares early that morning.

"Discourage how?" the Shadowhunter asked.

"The first claimed she didn't have time to drop by; the second said he didn't have any need for the potion anymore but forgot to call; the third was a bit more talkative," Magnus elaborated. "And it seems someone grabbed him on the way here and informed him that since I was not licensed by the High Warlock, dealing with me was illegal and might lead to loss of service from the other warlocks."

Samuel paled a few shades. "This is bad," he announced.

The older warlock shrugged. "I'll live. I don't _have_ to take clients. Besides, with some it's only a matter of time before they realize they can't get the same kind of quality elsewhere that easily – or for the same price."

" _You_ may be able to afford that," Samuel muttered. "Not everyone is as lucky. If she's keeping away your clients, she will probably do the same to mine, and I _need_ the money. I have to pay rent after all."

"We'll work something out," Melissa said, just as Magnus suggested: "I'll pay you for collecting and preparing ingredients if you really need it. First, though you might want to talk to Gwendolyn Gale. She's running the family's potions business, and she will probably be willing to let you sell through her. That'll be safe enough."

"True," Melissa agreed. "Auntie Gwen will be particularly happy if you're willing to produce the tedious regular potions that aren't particularly exciting to make. It'll be good practice, too, trying to get them to just the same potency every time."

" _Auntie_ Gwen?" Samuel squeaked. "I can't talk to one of those! I wouldn't… Do you know how dangerous those old women are?"

"Yeah," she returned, a sparkle in her eyes. "I've lived around them all my life, remember? Auntie Gwen wouldn't kill a good source for boring potions, though – or otherwise harm it. She'd probably not even try to scare you a lot if she thought it could get her out of brewing thirty liters of wakeall, multiple batches of permanent makeup and five bottles of virility potion every week."

Samuel considered the list. He looked marginally less concerned.

Magnus was just about to add something to Melissa's words when the front door opened.

Though dressed impeccably in his working clothes today, ready to consult in whatever case was at hand, David was unmistakably more than his outer appearance suggested. His presence filled up the room when he joined them, causing Samuel to lose all the color he had regained, and to keep blanching.

Either oblivious to it or deliberately ignoring it, David turned to Magnus after a general nod to everyone in the room.

"Someone has been trying to throw shields on land that belongs to the family," he said without further ado. "And I know it wasn't you."

"Glad to know you're that familiar with my magic," Magnus said. "I feared as much. I texted you yesterday…"

David gave a sharp nod. "I got the message. And I don't need to be. You were in Ritual last year. The Park recognizes you as someone who belongs. You wouldn't have raised any alarms."

"What are the shields going to do?" Christopher wanted to know.

"Nothing. They didn't take." David's voice sounded as if it should have been obvious. "But I hate being woken up for nothing like that. I've got their scents, and I'm going to pay a few visits after work. Do you want to come along?"

Magnus favored the man with a perfectly pleasant smile. "Certainly," he said. "Just text me when you're ready, and I'll join you."

"Wonderful," the other man returned. "Bring your fledglings if you like."

*

Hodge didn't balk when Auntie Bea told him to stay where he was when everyone else got up to clear the table. She claimed it was because he didn't know where anything went yet. He thought he probably could have figured that part out, but was happy enough to not be required to spend much time on his feet. He was already feeling the effort of being out of bed more than he was comfortable with.

Auntie Gwen brought him another mug of potion. Hers still didn't taste like strawberry.

As soon as he had swallowed the last of it, he found himself under strict orders to get himself over to the sofa and out of his shirt.

Feeling eyes on his back, he tried to refrain from using the furniture for support on the way.

Katie came over the moment he was settled. Like the day before, she charmed off the bandage and cleaned the wound beneath, which did look several days more healed than it had 24 hours ago. Once done, she gestured towards his wrist. "I know most of the healing's gone to the more potentially life-threatening bits, but you've gotten enough generalized healing in the last day that you probably want the stitches out of that – before they turn into permanent accessories," she suggested.

He made a face. She probably was right about that, though he wasn't looking forward to the experience. He let her have his arm anyway and watched as she deftly unwrapped the stump of his wrist and stroked a charm on either side of the scar to numb the area before picking up a small pair of scissors.

She worked quickly and efficiently, cutting the threads and teasing them out of flesh healed just a little beyond the usual time for removing sutures.

"You've done this before," he observed.

"Picking thread out of people who got themselves patched up before someone could apply a proper healing?" She gave him a grin, interrupting her work only for the moment she glanced away from it. "What gave you that idea?"

The bits of cut thread went into a metal bowl along with any used bandages and compresses. The moment she was done, Katie sketched a quick charm on the contents, causing a flame to spring up and burn, briefly but brightly, leaving behind only a small amount of ash after a moment.

Hodge's eyebrows went up. "You're certainly thorough," he observed.

Turning back towards him to pad and bandage his wrist again to protect the fresh scar, Katie shrugged. "We don't leave our blood lying around for people to use," she said. "Or our hair, or cut nails or anything else that was at any time connected to our bodies, if we can at all help it. Teenage family members in particular rather like to experiment, and you don't want to give them any opportunity. You certainly don't want to give anyone from outside the family any opportunity… "

He noticeably winced at that, and she stopped her work to look at him.

"What?" Following his line of sight, it didn't take her long to figure it out. "You don't know what happened to your hand?"

A half-nod, half-shrug was the answer. "I was a bit preoccupied," he said. "What with someone trying to kill me, then dragging me away, then getting caught again, sentenced, tried… I assume it was disposed of with any other evidence that something out of the ordinary happened there."

She thought about it as she secured the wrapping. "It probably doesn't matter," she said. "They think you're dead, and they have no reason to doubt that. Still… We probably _should_ find out if it was destroyed – and if not, take care of that. Just in case someone's kept it…"

He didn't have to ask why anyone would do that. There was plenty of magic you could do with body parts, and necromancy not the least of them.

_New York_

They hadn't even managed to chip one of the demons this time.

Gale luck had been with them when they had rounded a corner to one of the locations they had considered potential sites of attacks for the day, just to see the dark, menacing shapes of three demons appear out of a portal that looked like a bottomless black hole in the fabric of the city.

Intervening before the attack on the mundanes gathered in the park nearby could even begin, they engaged the creatures in a brief but vicious battle.

It appeared that these three were smart enough or had enough of a sense of self-preservation to not draw out the engagement. Unable to get to their destination and with the portal closed to them, they made off through a side street.

With one look to coordinate, the four sped after them, intending to keep them in sight for as long as they could.

Alec was limping slightly, blood from a wound in his thigh soaking his jeans. He didn't let it slow him down, though.

"This is where having someone with a superior sense of smell would come in really handy," he panted as he skidded to a halt. They had just turned a corner and found themselves at a crossroads, with no indication of which direction their quarry had gone. "Spread out."

They split up, racing down the different branches of the street, but without success.

"Plan B," Alec said when they rejoined. "Tracking. Jace?"

His _parabatai_ stepped forward, a slightly confused look on his face. Before he could ask what exactly Alec planned to use for tracking, the other man reached down to yank something out of his flesh.

Blood flowed more freely then, and Izzy hurried to sketch first an anti-venom charm and then a healing one onto her brother's leg.

With a quick thank you to her, Alec showed them the stinger. "This should work…"

Jace held out his hands. The small bit of demon felt solid enough between their palms, which told them that the creature had not left this plane of existence. Even disconnected from the body, the stinger would have disintegrated without a special preservation spell on it, had the demon no longer been within their dimension.

No amount of focusing, however, would give them any kind of bearing.

"Under shields or across water," Jace suggested.

"Let's comb the area then," their leader decided. "They can't have been that far ahead of us. If we can find where the shields start, we'll have something to go by."

 

_Calgary_

Maybe it was that thought of someone keeping his severed hand and using it to control his actions.

While everyone else went about their work in the apartment and elsewhere, Hodge dozed off – only to find himself caught in a nightmare that rivaled anything he had dreamed up while in the hands of the Silent Brothers.

He came awake, stopping himself at the very last moment from punching Graham, who had clearly been trying to wake him up.

Ignoring the sharp stab of pain down his arm, he pushed himself into a sitting position, trying to remember where he was. There were too many people around him.

Still disoriented, he scanned the room, looking for –

Katie slid onto the sofa next to him, one hand stroking his back.

He tried to focus on her touch as he sat with his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest, hugging himself as best he could with only one hand, the fingers of his right digging into his left arm hard enough to probably leave marks while he strained to stop the shaking.

Allie held out a steaming mug to him. It took an exertion of will to unclamp his hand and take it. The mug wouldn't stay still as he lifted it to his lips to take a sip.

The potion was sweet and thick, chocolate-flavored. It took him another few moments to realize that 'potion' wasn't quite the right term.

His breaths came more evenly now. He was almost thankful for the renewed throbbing in his shoulder. It helped ground him in the present. The chocolate was gone, and he put the mug down before allowing himself to sag against Katie, closing his eyes only for a moment before forcing them open again.

"Who do we need to kill?" Allie asked. Her voice had a quality to it that had him wondering if she meant that literally.

He shook his head. "They're dead already." He didn't actually know if they all were, but Valentine tended to be thorough.

They were watching him, probably wondering what it was he'd been dreaming. "It isn't a memory or anything… It's more like… a spell, a kind of mind control. Making sure there's no greater horror than sleep." The smile he directed at Katie was a bit shaky. "I guess the quilt worked."

"Of course the quilt works," Auntie Bea declared, sounding as if he'd made an observation that was far too obvious.

There really were more people in the room than there had been before. Some had apparently arrived while he had been busy with his nightmare and before it had become clear enough that someone needed to wake him up. That was probably a first impression he'd be working hard to compensate for.

Luckily, nearly everyone seemed to have turned their attention away from him again. He turned his towards Katie. "Don't you have to be at work today?"

She leaned into him a little more. "I'm off work today."

He kept himself from rubbing his shoulder. It felt sore, but he didn't want Katie to worry about that.

He'd have to do his best not to fall asleep on the couch again. Or bring the quilt. The quilt had worked all day the last day. He'd spent almost all of the time that wasn't taken up by visitors asleep and not a single nightmare had reared its ugly head.

"Auntie Gwen said to give you this."

A girl had come up to the sofa, holding out a folded quilt not unlike Katie's. The patterns were different, and so were some of the charms on it, but the general gist of the ones he could see was the same.

"Thank you," he said, not sure what else he could say. "Whose is this?"

"No one's," the girl said, then thought for a moment, her eyes narrowed slightly. "Yours I guess! Auntie Gwen said to go and get one of the spares."

He hadn't realized that there was such a thing as spare charmed quilts. There was some logic to it, though. Unless they buried their dead with their quilts – and even though grave robbers weren't as common as they used to be, it was probably not a good idea to leave spellwork like this to rot in the ground – spares were likely to happen.

"Thank you," he repeated, letting the end of the word trail off, hoping to prompt her to fill in her name.

"Lyla," she supplied willingly. "We just came over a moment ago."

He directed a smile at her that felt much steadier. "You sent me flowers yesterday. And a healing charm."

Her eyes lit up as she nodded.

She studied him, her scrutiny resting briefly on the small bit of white visible over his collar before sliding downwards to remain on the premature ending of his arm.

"Did Jack bite your hand off?" she asked after another moment.

"What?" he blurted out, taken entirely by surprise by the suggestion. "No!"

"That was your Uncle Jace," Katie supplied, as evenly as if she was talking about who had cooked supper.

Hodge didn't have the time to wonder about that.

Lyla clearly found that piece of information unlikely. " _Uncle Jace_ bit off his hand?"

Somewhere behind the sofa, Graham, who had clearly been listening in on their conversation, laughed out loud. "No," he clarified. "If I'm informed correctly, he used a sword."

The girl nodded to herself. "That makes sense." Mistaking his baffled look as targeted at her statement, she added: "He doesn't have any antlers."

Not quite sure what to say to that, Hodge stared at Katie, who was trying hard to maintain a straight face.

"Sweetheart," she said, finally taking pity on him, "In this family, men periodically grow antlers, and they will use them for the intended purpose. They have some pretty damn sharp points. Some fights go farther than others."

Of course no one had thought to mention _that_ yet.


	14. Chapter 14

Alec shifted his weight a little as he studied the faces of his assembled friends. Laying out the situation before them all had chilled him through and through. Speaking of a revolt, of not only researching forbidden subjects but about openly, deliberately going against the Clave, against the angels, against anything that the Shadowhunters stood for, to his friends was one thing.

Repeating the same words before Aline and Helen, Christopher and Sebastian was an entirely different matter again.

The two women looked composed. They'd been caught in an attempt to get at the four of them once before.

The other two seemed more apprehensive. They had only just left behind their own destroyed world to come and live in the relative safety of this one – and there they were proposing to destroy that safety again.

Christopher and Sebastian had been caught in a revolt already – one headed by Valentine and his people. They had seen the fall-out. They had lived with the consequences. They had lost friends, family, and their home in it.

Magnus, sitting between Izzy and Jace, gave him a serene smile and a reassuring nod. It felt good to know that, no matter what else, he had his boyfriend's full support.

"How do you plan to proceed?" Aline asked into the silence. "I assume you're not planning to march on Idris and seize power."

"I'm not planning to seize power at all," Alec told her. "We need to find a way to protect ourselves – and others – from the influence that led to the Demon Plague, back when Aveline Montclair tried to spread some of the same truths we have found. Then we'll have to pass that knowledge on to others."

"You'll need proof," Helen said. "Most people will prefer to go on believing what they have always believed. You'll need hard, unshakable proof that they've been lied to all their lives. Even so, some will surely find ways to convince themselves you're in the wrong."

Alec nodded. "We have the charms already," he pointed out. "And we know—You weren't there, last year when we joined the Gales in their Ritual. Izzy, Jace, Clary and I, we _felt_ something back then. We'll have to take the risk and have our runes removed – not the way people usually get deruned, though. The Aunties thought they would be able to figure something out. I'll take them up on their offer."

"You would abandon your runes and cease to be one of the Nephilim?" Aline was incredulous.

"No." Alec surprised himself with how certain he sounded. "But I would abandon my runes and find out what being Nephilim actually is like. Without whatever restrictions we have imposed on ourselves. And maybe – maybe that will be all the proof we will need to convince others."

"What you propose," Christopher said, speaking slowly, so as if considering every single word. "Is more than just doing your own thing when no one is looking. If you go through with this, you'll have enemies that go beyond the Clave. If _we_ go through with this, we will make the angels our enemies. Do you realize what this means?"

"We do. And I don't see a way around it. We know this much: They created us as their weapons. They gave us enhancements that work, at the same time, as some sort of self-destruct mechanism. We spend most of our lives fighting their wars for them, and we're never given enough of a reprieve to question anything. And we don't even know the true reason behind that war they fight with the demons."

"The demons have invaded this world, and others, and are preying on the people living there," Aline pointed out, though her expression suggested that she had already taken her thoughts one step further.

Izzy rose from her seat. "So have the angels," she declared. "I'm with David's journal on this one: they belong in this world no more than the demons do. We've seen the memory of that vision the original Nicholas Nightshade tried to recreate. It matched the warded description in the journal. At least some of them are just as bad as the worst demons you can imagine. There may be some among them that are truly good – but I fear they're not the ones that were behind the creation of the Shadowhunters."

"You're ready to stand against the angels?" Aline asked again, this time fixing Izzy specifically with an intense look.

"I see no way around it," Izzy said.

"Should your friend Hodge be here with us?" Sebastian asked suddenly. "Didn't you say you have reason to assume he knows more about the angel situation?"

"We're not going to pull him into this before he has had a little time to get clear about what he actually wants. Give him a few days at least." Alec realized that 'a few days' wouldn't make a lot of a difference. They wouldn't be able to afford more than that, however. They simply didn't have the time for it. "But no matter what he can contribute – we need to do something about this situation, and we can't go back to pretending we don't know anything. The only way we have is to go forward." He paused briefly. "I'm not asking you to make your decision now. I'd like to say that you can tell us whenever you're ready, but it appears that we have a deadline of two weeks."

"I'm in." That was Helen. She stroked back her hair as she spoke, exposing ears with tips that were more pointed than usual. "Call that my Seelie blood speaking, but I haven't liked the way we put ourselves above everything else and justify it with our angel blood even before any of this went down. Look at the crimes committed by Shadowhunters over the centuries and how they've been justified."

She stood, turning to look at Christopher. "I am part Seelie. That means I have demon blood. Even without what happened to Aline and what I did then, I would have stood on the wrong side of Clave politics some day. I'd rather choose my side when I can."

Christopher turned his head slightly, avoiding her eyes. "We need to talk about this," he said, indicating himself and Sebastian. "It's not a decision I can make on my own. But…" He swallowed, rubbing his hands over his face for a moment before he continued. "I think we committed to following you quite a while ago, Alec. Wherever you lead."

"I wish I could talk to my mother about this," Aline added. "She'll have insights that she didn't have before now, and she might have something to say about this."

Jace leaned over to touch her arm. "I'm sorry to say so, Aline," he said, "but your mother is the consul now. Yes – she'll have insights now that she didn't have before, but you can bet that when she accepted the position, she accepted the knowledge. She's no more an ally for us than our father is."

Her face darkened as she started to object. She didn't get very far, however. "I don't want you to be right," she said eventually. "But I can't deny it. I can't keep hiding forever either, though, so I guess I'm in. What do you need us to do?"

Alec wasn't sure what outcome would have been preferable for him. Having his friends along for this ride was reassuring. Knowing they were safer for having opted out of their insane plans – which were barely worth the name yet at all – would have been reassuring in a different manner, though.

"Right now," he told Aline, "It'd be great if you and Helen could go through our notes and everything again. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes can find something we haven't been able to spot."

*

David had changed into jeans and a sweater by the time he collected Magnus later that afternoon.

Considering that the man literally lived in the park and spent considerable stretches of time in the shape of a stag, he managed to look amazingly unremarkable when he wished to.

"Where are we going?" Magnus asked him as they were walking away from Nose Hill Park side by side. "Do you want to visit her right in her lair, or did you actually make an appointment somewhere?

"The former," David said, a smirk on his face. "I wasn't going to give her any advance warning."

It hadn't taken much convincing to get Samuel to disclose the High Warlock's business address to them. The young warlock was hopeful that this visit would put an end to whatever harassment she and her followers could come up with.

"Do you want to take the lead?"

David's words surprised Magnus. He hadn't thought that that was an option. After all, David had decided to take this step to prevent further attempts of interfering with what the Gales considered their property, and David was the dominant Gale male.

"I don't want to challenge her as a warlock," he replied. "I'm coming along as a warlock associate of the Gale family, but I wasn't planning to take this into my own hands. If you'd prefer, though..." he let the thought hang in the air.

David chuckled. "Who would have thought that the Gale family would ever acquire such a thing?"

He turned, never stopping before he stepped onto the street at a traffic light that turned green just as they reached it. When David Edward Gale wanted to go somewhere, lowly things such as traffic control circuits weren't going to get in the way.

Not for the first time, Magnus was glad that the family was on their side. The amount of power they – and Allie and her brother in particular – tossed around so casually could have scared even him. It was some relief that the family limited itself by the way it bound itself to the earth they lived on. Allie may have been able to do virtually anything within Calgary, but she was physically unable to leave its borders. David was bound to the park, and while he had mastered the art of moving within the city by now, several years after he had first anchored there, even moving into one of the houses along the park permanently would have been impossible for him.

"Is there any reason we didn't take the car?" Magnus asked as they turned another corner. "It's not that I mind walking, but it might have made for a more impressive entrance."

In contrast to Magnus, David did own a car, which he parked outside the Aunties' house.

"Didn't want to deal with whatever they might come up with," David told him. "I'm sure I could protect it sufficiently, but we might make more of an impression if we don't give them the opportunity to hide spells on my vehicle."

*

With traffic shaping itself to their path, they reached their destination soon enough.

"I'm surprised Christopher didn't choose to come along," David mentioned as they were in sight of the building.

Magnus reached up to adjust the collar of his burgundy coat. The Gale family's warlock associate would make an impeccable appearance.

"He understands he's not in full control of his power and he's afraid he might be a liability today," he explained. "Since they attacked him once already, I fear he may have a point."

"I would have liked that crossbow of his on my side," David said. "It's impressive when charged with the right kind of bolts."

"We'll probably manage," Magnus said, his reassuring smile quickly turning into a grin. "And in the worst case, we can always call in a dragon to help."

"Half-dragon," David corrected.

"Half-dragon Prince," Magnus specified.

The High Warlock of Calgary resided in an elegant building that housed three apartments – in theory, at least, since none of the door bells were labeled. She probably occupied the entire space, if not for her personal use then for warlock business.

With a shrug, David put his palm against the buttons and pressed all of them at the same time, releasing them only briefly before applying pressure again. They could hear a faint sound of ringing on their side of the door.

It took four blasts of noise before the door swung open, revealing a young woman in what looked like a uniform.

"Stop the noise," she hissed. "Whatever you want, waking her from –" Her words ceased as she realized the identity of the two visitors and she froze, her expression turning from borderline hostile to resigned. "Telling you to go away won't work, will it?" she asked, her voice pitched considerably lower now.

David shook his head mutely.

She stepped aside, a wave of her hand indicating that they should proceed down the corridor. A couple of gestures at the door gave her away as a warlock herself. Magnus noted that the spells she used weren't locking or blocking the door, but merely setting a sign to let anyone who came calling know that only the most urgent business could be attended to right then.

They were led into a generous parlor, where a few more spells brought cups of tea and a platter of biscuits to a table.

Magnus and David stood side by side, faces neutral and bodies in identical postures of a relaxed but ready stance. Neither of them took the indicated seat just yet.

"She'll be down eventually," the servant said. "But you may be in for some wait."

"That's okay," David told her evenly. "I'm used to standing."

"What's your name?" Magnus inquired.

She looked surprised at the question. "Louisa Rock," she told him after a moment's hesitation.

"I'm Magnus Bane and this is David Gale," Magnus introduced them, needlessly since Louisa doubtlessly knew who they were. He noted once again just how much 'Gale' sounded like a warlock name. "Nice to meet you, Louisa. You work here?" It was obvious, but if it served to keep her tied up in harmless conversation, she couldn't go and help prepare some kind of trap for them. Of course they didn't know how many others there were in the building. David didn't appear concerned, though, and that was good enough for Magnus.

"I know," the warlock said. "You've got some nerve to come here. She's very angry at you."

Magnus shrugged. "We're not particularly pleased with her right now either," he pointed out. "Are you going to get into trouble for letting us in?"

"I might for not stopping that screeching more quickly." She treated David to a dark look. "That door bell is disconnected."

"I noticed," David returned. "But I used it anyway."

"I noticed." Louisa couldn't quite help a small smile.

The sound of footsteps made her tense immediately.

"There she comes?" David asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Louisa nodded as she moved out of the way.

Magnus mutely raised an eyebrow at her. Was she expecting spells to be flying any moment? He reached out to touch a ley line but didn't grasp power. He merely wanted to know that it was there within easy reach if he needed it.

The High Warlock of Calgary looked to be in her early thirties. She was tall and slim, her hair a mass of golden locks that fell to her shoulders contained only by a thin band of cloth. Her manner of dress was business-like and elegant, but with additions of color that kept it from looking severe.

"I was busy with a working all night last night and most of today," she announced in a cool voice as she entered. "I'm not in the mood for games."

"Very good," David returned evenly. "Neither are we."

She didn't glare at him. Apparently she considered herself above such reactions. She merely lifted a single, accusatory eyebrow as she waited for him to continue.

"We can keep this brief," the man continued when it was clear she didn't intend to speak. "There's only one set of wards on Nose Hill Park, and those are mine. The next warlock who tries to claim any part of the property exclusively will find themselves cut off from any source of power within Calgary. You and yours can continue to use the park for gathering ingredients or as a practice ground, as long as you do not interfere with me and mine. Anyone who does may find it impossible to enter the grounds in future. Is that clear so far?"

"I hear you," the woman said, her tone not a bit warmer and her enunciation clipped and precise. "But there also is only one warlock community in Calgary, and that is the one I am in charge of. I won't have some rogue warlocks starting their own little group on the side. You know what that leads to." She looked at Magnus as she said the last.

"Healthy competition?" he suggested. "Look, Ms…"

"Cross," she supplied. "Carlotta Cross. As you would know if you had made your proper presentation when you came to join us."

"Look, Ms Cross," Magnus repeated, ignoring the rest of her words. "I haven't come to establish a second set of warlocks in Calgary. I don't have any ambitions to take over your post. I'm here because this is where my friends are. We do not need to have any dealings with each other if you do not wish." He raised his hand to stop her when she opened her mouth to speak. "But I will not turn my back on those who come asking me for help. All you need to do to prevent that is to provide the help yourself."

"I won't have you tell me how to run my warlocks," Carlotta shot back. "I know who you are, Magnus Bane. You were demoted from your post in New York for gross misconduct. You do not get to give me advice."

Magnus gave a nonchalant shrug. "You don't have to take it."

David had listened to their exchange in silence, standing relaxed and comfortably, just as if he owned the room. "Your warlocks and our family have coexisted without any issues for years," he said now. "Magnus is part of the family, and so are those he has taken in. You would do well to remember that. Neither I nor my sister will tolerate interference."

Turning her attention from Magnus to David, she schooled her features into a smile that would have been more pleasant, had it reached her eyes. "Are you threatening me in my own home?" she asked, her tone sweet.

"I am stating facts," David told her. "How you take them is your own decision."

"Well." She spread the fingers of her hands slightly, as if flexing them in anticipation of a spell. "There are many legends about the Gale family among the Shadow World. I have been wondering how many of them are true. Somehow I cannot quite believe you're as powerful as they make you out to be."

She closed one hand into a fist at the last words.

There was no visible effect, but Magnus felt what she had done immediately. There was a strong ley line running through the building – probably the reason she had picked this spot to settle. Apparently, she had prepared some protection spells on it. The simple motion had activated a shield, closing the source of power off from him.

By his side, David seemed unimpressed.

As he turned his focus from the absence of magic to the presence of the Gale Anchor, Magnus could – not exactly see, but perceive the other man reaching for some sort of energy that was inaccessible to him. He simply went past the ley lines, to a deeper level of the fabric of the world, where he tapped into a spring of power so vast and wild that even the echo of it that he received through the filter of David felt overwhelming.

"Is that a challenge?" David asked.

Without any outward sign of effort, he teased a small thread of energy from his source and fed it to Magnus, who had to strain not to let his reaction show. The ley lines they tapped into normally were tame, like rivers straightened and calmed by the intervention of centuries of human use. The magic David offered him was primal and wild, raw and unused to being handled. This would be interesting.

Carlotta glanced at Magnus, who hadn't moved. Then she spun, her hand shooting out and red sparks flying, not at him but at David.

The blond man didn't flinch. He merely opened himself farther to the power. As his shields solidified, so did the glossy white structure of a large rack of antlers suddenly visible above is head.

Even as he was wondering if the antlers were actually always there yet not always visible, or if they only appeared when the Gales were channeling a certain amount of power – or reaching a certain amount of sexual tension – Magnus reacted on instinct, his own shields going up, fed by the tendril David still supplied. A snap of his hand sent a cord of magic speeding at Carlotta's feet, tangling her legs and pulling her down before she could shape another spell.

To her credit, she managed not to yelp in surprise, though it was impossible to miss that she had been caught completely unprepared for an attack. She had been certain that her lock on the ley lines was absolute.

As she tried to rise, it was clear that something was keeping her attached to the carpet. Magnus noted it with silent amusement. This wasn't one of his spells.

David turned towards Louisa. "I believe that your Mistress is a little busy disentangling herself from that. I wouldn't touch it if I was you, unless you want to be caught in it as well. You may see us out, though, if you like."

The woman looked at him, eyes wide, then at Magnus. After a moment, she nodded. "This way," she said, needlessly, since there weren't a great many directions they could have gone, and they surely could have found the door on their own anyway.

They complied, stepping out into the corridor where she seemed to suddenly reconsider and pushed past them to take the lead.

Magnus felt a jolt as she brushed against him. The Gales were attracted to power, and David was the epitome of power. Had he been a Gale, he would have been about ready to tear the clothes off of the man and himself the moment they were in safety.

As it was, he was able to exhibit a little more restraint, but his trousers were feeling uncomfortably tight, and he regretted deeply that Alec had already left for the evening. How much of a risk would there be in making him a portal?

"Will she be alright?" Louisa asked, her meek tone belied by the calculating glint in her eyes.

"Sure," David told her. "She'll need a while to get out of the net I dropped on her. Maybe I'll let it dissipate when we're home. We'll see."

There was a ward on the front door that hadn't been there when they had come in. Apparently, it was a spell set to be activated and deactivated at need, as she gestured to remove it with motions fluid from long practice. "How did you do it?" she asked as she pushed the door open for them. "She sealed off the ley line. There was no power in that room that I could have used – there was no power anyone but her should have been able to use."

"This is Calgary," David said, as if that was all the explanation it needed. When she looked at him uncomprehendingly, he elaborated. "I am more than what you see before you. I am anchored here. I am part of this place. You cannot cut me off from it, or its powers, unless you destroy every last particle in it that qualifies as being alive. The same goes for my sister. Do not think you can challenge us."

"I wouldn't dream of it." The words were so low that they seemed more a suggestion in the air than actual sound, just before the door snapped shut behind them.

David didn't look back, but merely started on the way towards the park, his steps calm and measured, just as if he was nothing but a man in his late thirties, out for the evening with a friend. Just as if he wasn't wearing a rack of shiny antlers like a crown.

"Well, that was interesting," Magnus noted as they were walking away.

"She'll try again," David told him. "She wouldn't believe a word of it if Louisa repeats to her what I just told her."

"Of course she will," Magnus said. "But I didn't mean that. Back there in the hallway – when she suddenly needed to get in front of us?" He grinned, reaching into his pocket. "She slipped me this."

David raised an eyebrow at the small square of paper. "What's it saying?"

Unfolding it, Magnus focused on the lines written there in a small, cramped hand. "An address," he said. "And a date and time."

 

_New York_

Clary didn't like the curfew any more than any of her friends did. She wouldn’t have minded being in New York, but being in New York and unable to go and see any of Simon's gigs, or to do any of the other things she liked that took place outside of the institute rankled her.

Of course, they could have insisted that Aldertree let them out. They could have made it part of their deal to be excused, or even to be put on the teams that were scheduled for night patrols.

Alec had decided against it, opting for the path that would draw the least attention to their arrangement. He had hoped it would give them the greatest chance to pursue their own goals on the side.

Right now, it seemed that it hadn't done any good at all.

With no other choice, she had taken to working on her art in the evenings, completing more of the large canvases that allowed her to access the Wood. They still had a few places where they wanted to give themselves an entry – and exit – point.

Feeling a need for some semblance of fresh air, she had taken her easel and paints to the greenhouse today, where she set up her things close enough to the entrance to work by the light coming from the institute corridor. Forest by night – that would be the theme of her painting today.

Her canvas was already primed, ready to take the first layer of darker paint.

With a few generous strokes of a thin brush, she sketched the rough layout of her work.

She was humming to herself as she dipped a larger brush into a dark green to mark the vague shape of the crowns of her trees, when a sound told her she had company.

A group of three had come up behind her, standing just inside the entrance. She tried to remember their names but came up blank. They were relatively new to the institute, all arrived during the time of their extended absence. She couldn't even remember that she had been introduced to them.

"Can I do anything for you, guys?" she asked when the need to fill the silence that stretched between them as they stared at her grew too heavy.

Still without speaking, they moved. The way they approached reminded her of something. She had seen that kind of movement before. That had been during their travels, back before they had visited the alternate dimension. They had been in Dublin, where they had been attacked by a group of Shadowhunters caught by a mind control device.

"Seriously?" She moved away from her easel. This didn't bode well. Three to one would have been bad odds in any situation, and while she was improving – quickly, as she hoped – she was still far from being as well trained as any of them would be. Whatever plans they had, her best chance lay in escaping, not standing to face them.

Unfortunately, they were right between her and the door. The exit from the greenhouse to the outside seemed impossibly far.

Moving backwards, she tried to keep the distance between herself and the trio about equal.

"Look, whatever you're being told to do," she said, wishing she could pitch her voice the way Charlie did to give it power, "you don't have to obey those orders. You can fight it, okay? You're stronger than that. You don't really want to harm me."

She had no proof that that was what they were about to do, but she couldn't really think of any other reason for their presence in that state.

There was no reaction in their faces. Their eyes remained staring blankly ahead, barely even blinking.

Though they were walking slowly, there was something menacing in their approach.

Her next step landed off the path, causing her foot to slip on suddenly soft, yielding ground. As she scrambled to keep from falling, the three sped up their progress and she realized her mistake. She should have used the time she had to text or call her friends.

It was too late for that now.

She wasn't even armed. This was the institute, after all! She didn't expect an attack here – and certainly not from their own people!

One of the three rushed forward, using her stumble.

Her training kicked in, and she dove through under the first swing, her hand connecting with hard muscle before she could think about what she was doing.

The foot that sped towards her from the side came too fast, however. She saw it just in time to jerk back, turning a straight kick into a brush that still left her feeling bruised, and sent her right into the third attack.

A dash for the door would have been her preferred course of action now, but the three were too close, blocking her way, methodically moving in to attack and back to avoid any attempt she started to get in a hit or a kick of her own.

Blood was trickling into her eyes from a split eyebrow. She didn't dare raise her hand to wipe it away. Her knuckles felt bruised, and one wrist was swelling already from a hit that hadn't landed right, hurting her more than her opponent.

Her breaths sounded impossibly loud in her own ears.

She had stopped thinking about what she was doing, and let her body react as her friends had taught her. A swing blocked on her forearm sent a sharp jolt of pain through her that raced all the way up to her shoulder. The next kick connected with her side, and her vision blacked out for a moment. She thought she had heard a rib crack. Breathing was now accompanied by a sharp stab through her side.

Desperate, she tried to break out of their circle. She needed to get away.

Something collided with her shin and she found herself pitching forward, smacking into the ground face-first. She tasted earth, then blood, as she struggled to draw air into her lungs through aching ribs.

Was there some kind of charm to stop them? She knew she shouldn't be using them openly, but it didn't seem as if she had any other choice anymore. Why was no one looking at the video feed right now? Or were they, and happy enough with what was happening?

A boot hit her head, and all she could see anymore were bright spots against darkness.

She rolled, gasped in pain as the movement aggravated existing injuries, and found her progress stopped by a foot that came down onto her wrist. It was lucky in a way – on the hand, it surely would have broken a few fingers. As it was, it merely left her with more bruises.

It didn't really matter, though. She was at their mercy now, and they were determined to finish their job.


	15. Chapter 15

The devastating hit she expected never came. Instead, there was a flurry of sound and motion rushing at them, three whirling shapes launching themselves at her attackers.

She rolled around just in time to see a high kick from Jace throw back one of the three, dazed, into a plant. Branches broke and folded under the sudden weight. The man stayed where he was.

Two powerful hits from Alec drove away one of the two women in the group, while Izzy's whip coiled around the neck of the other, pulling her out of the way.

Satisfied that his target wasn't returning into the fray, Jace dropped to his knees by Clary's side.

"You okay?" His voice sounded breathless – far more so than the brief engagement warranted. He must have run all the way from where he had been, Clary realized.

She shook her head. It should have been obvious that she wasn't. As she tried to elaborate, she found that talking was made difficult by the fact that she had bit her own tongue somewhere along the way. She swallowed blood and winced at her fiancé's touch close to her eye. Her field of vision on that side narrowed rapidly.

"How'd you know?" She wasn't sure she could have made out the words in his place – and it wasn't what she'd intended to say anyway.

"Your phone called me," Jace said. "Don't try to move. This looks like you need some healing."

Her attempt at glaring at him was cut short by the painful way in which the movement pulled on her face. Alec and Izzy were crowding into her view now as well, leaning over her.

"Not that bad." Clary hoped she would be able to sound more convincing than that in a few moments. "Can't go to the medics."

"We'll handle it," Izzy told her. "Just do what Jace said and stay still for now."

Her friend leaned in, fingers sketching charms on Clary's skin.

The pain subsided a little, allowing her to move enough to sit up. She leaned on one hand as she did so. Her other wrist wouldn't take any weight. "Mind control," she said as she turned her head, slowly to keep the dizziness at bay that started to assault her. "They reminded me of that group in Dublin."

"Did they say anything?" Alec asked.

Clary indicated a negative.

Before she could say more, a group of men and women burst into the room, spreading out and securing the scene.

"Hands off the blade!" One of them hissed at Alec, who had reached for his weapon immediately.

He froze, lifting his hands slightly, palms out. "They were assaulting our friend," he declared. "We only knocked them out to save her."

The stare he got for that was frosty.

"What took you so long to get here anyway?" Jace asked, without looking away from Clary. "You must have been alerted about the commotion well in time to arrive before us!"

"We're not exactly on standby in case one of you picks a fight with those larger and better trained than you are," one of the newly arrived group spat.

Two of his companions had gone to try and wake up the trio. They could hear low groaning, but no intelligible sounds were produced. The one Izzy's whip had caught was sitting with her back against a trunk, eyes open but staring blankly.

"They were under some sort of mind control spell," Clary repeated, all her focus on enunciating clearly.

The leader of the security detail gave a scornful laugh. "When did you turn into an expert for that?" he asked.

"We've seen it before," Izzy defended her friend while her brothers bristled and tensed as if ready to launch themselves into a new fight, should the necessity arise.

"Check the camera feed," Jace added. "You'll see she didn't attack first."

"We may," came the icy response. "And until we have determined the facts of this, you lot will go into a holding cell, just in case."

"No way." Jace didn't rise yet, but his eyes were shooting daggers at the older man. He shifted his weight and leaned forward to slide his arms under Clary's shoulders and legs. "We're going to take care of our friend, and we're not going to do that in a holding cell. You can find us in my room if you need us." He straightened slowly then, ignoring Clary's protests that she could probably walk.

"Bring Aldertree along when you come to question us," Alec told the others as he followed his _parabatai_ , never leaving the security detail out of his view. "Iz, can you grab Clary's things?"

 

_Calgary_

Katie found Hodge staring at the mirror, the bathroom door open far enough for her to watch him from the hallway.

"Admiring the rune removal?" she asked.

He jerked at the sound of her voice, his entire body tensing and going into something like a battle-ready stance. The effort it took him to relax again was visible.

"More like glowering at myself," he admitted. "I hate that traitor there." A gesture of his remaining hand indicated his reflection.

"Hey." She pushed into the room to stand next to him, rising up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "You're not bound to who you were." She inclined her head towards the mirror. "You can make him anything you want."

His eyes were sad when he looked at her. "It's not that easy. I can't escape my past. And I've spent sixteen years hating what I see in there every day."

"What do you see there?" She studied him, watching as he turned to stare at the tiles next to the reflective glass.

"Treason and weakness. Betrayal. I've betrayed every cause I worked for. Valentine to the Clave. The Clave to Valentine. My students to Valentine. My commanding officer to Valentine. I don't understand why you didn't just throw me out the moment I was able to stand on my feet."

There was no deception in his voice. He wasn't saying those words in order to get her endorsement or validation.

"You were young the first time," she noted, her voice low. "And you were given an unfair punishment. Going by what Alec and the others told us, you lived through sixteen years of having that rubbed in your face every single day. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't break."

"I broke," he said, his voice bleak.

"When Charlie and I came to the City of Bones to get you out of there, you were grabbing Valentine and holding him to keep him from getting at Jace. You tried to do the right thing when it counted," she pointed out. "And that was even after they started torturing you on top of it all."

The corner of his mouth twitched briefly. "Didn't do any good, though, did it?"

"I'm curious," Katie said. "If they tried you with that truth sword, how were they able to frame you for someone else's crimes?"

He looked at her, his eyes narrowing in a frown. "They didn't use the Sword the first time."

"Why not?" The question was posed neutrally, without a challenge. She didn't doubt his words, and she hoped he didn’t think that that was what she was getting at.

The slightest shake of his head followed. "I don't know. I was glad I was spared that at the time. I was… young, as you said. Scared. Trial by Soul Sword is said to be a terrible experience. I can tell you now that it's worse than that. I didn't demand it. They didn't offer. I was sentenced, and bound, and in some way I was glad that I'd gotten off alive and that my prison at least looked like freedom if I squinted at it the right way." He was starting to understand, though. "They should have tried us all by Soul Sword then. Not just me. If the others lied, they can't have—"

Katie nodded. "The issue goes deeper than you thought. You need to be prepared to hear some really bad things when the others show you what they've found. Just – for the moment, expect that whatever you think they'll tell you, the truth will be worse. And they do have the evidence to back up their claims."

It was clear that his mind was racing already. If they hadn't tried him by Soul Sword back then – did that mean they hadn't wanted him to say the unshakable truth? They couldn’t have sentenced him the way they had if he'd said, under the influence of the truth sword, what he had and hadn't actually done. If they'd tried the others in the same way, they would have had to admit to their own crimes. If they had, and those had still been blamed on him, then someone had helped them cover those up. If they hadn't, then they hadn't been interested in getting to the truth of the matter to begin with.

Considering that the matter at hand had been the Uprising…

Lost in his thoughts, he almost missed her next words.

"For the moment, maybe we can do something about what you see in the mirror, though."

"Are you proposing we break the mirror?"

She chuckled. "I was thinking maybe you would profit of a bit of restyling. Charlie likes to change her hair whenever she starts on a new type of music, or a new task, or just to suit her mood. She turns it all kinds of colors, or patterns."

"I don’t think colors or patterns in my hair suit me," Hodge admitted.

That earned him a grin. "I just meant she has experience with altering looks. What do you think? A new look to suit the new Hodge?"

He was silent for a moment before he nodded. "Why not. I don't have anything to lose, do I?"

 

_New York_

Jace put Clary down gently on the bed they shared at night. Thanks to their constant awareness of the cameras in the institute, they hadn't actually used it for anything other than strict sleeping since their return to New York, though.

"But I'll get everything dirty!" she tried to protest when she realized what he was doing.

"I know how to operate a washing machine," Jace returned evenly. "In contrast to my _parabatai_."

"I know how to operate it," Alec shot back in the same tone. "I just sometimes don't pay attention to what I stick inside."

Izzy dropped Clary's art supplies just inside the door and ducked back out of the room, muttering something about getting supplies.

In the meantime, Jace reached for the hem of Clary's t-shirt.

She tried to roll her eyes at him, but winced almost immediately. "I can undress myself." Her words had gotten less clear again now that no one was listening. At least she wasn't objecting to the idea that her injuries needed attention, and that that required her to get out of most of her clothes.

With a shrug, Jace let go and slid off the edge of the bed to make his way to his bathroom.

Clary was still in the process of slowly maneuvering herself out of the garment when he returned, a bowl of water in his hands and several towels over his arm. By the time he had cleared the night stand to put down the water, Clary was trying to reach her feet to get out of her boots without causing herself more discomfort from her bruised – and possibly cracked – ribs.

"Would you like me to get that for you?" Jace asked sweetly.

She glowered at him, but let herself sink back onto the bed and allowed him to take charge of her shoelaces.

Alec stood at parade rest, grinning to himself. "Glad you're not feeling too badly," he commented, just as Izzy returned and closed the door behind her. "How about an account of what actually happened there?"

"There isn't much to tell." A sharp hiss escaped between her teeth when Jace pulled off one of her boots. She hadn't even realized when she had twisted her ankle somewhere during the fight, but the way it felt spoke a clear language. "They came up behind me and just kept coming. Didn't say a word. Barely reacted when I hit them back."

"I'd say it's obvious who's behind this," Alec said, watching his sister dab a corner of a towel into the water and start carefully wiping away dried and drying blood to better gage the extent of the damage to Clary's face. "Except that it doesn’t make much sense."

"Not unless he decided to shorten his deadline considerably," Jace agreed. He dropped Clary's boots next to the bed and rolled down the sock on the injured side to sketch a charm of his own on the rapidly swelling joint while his body was effectively blocking the camera.

Izzy stopped her ministrations to reach into her bag and pull out a jar of salve to hand her brother. "If you're sure it's just a sprain, use this," she told him. "Should be well enough to wear boots again by morning then."

As she continued to work, alternating cleaning with charms, Izzy's expression darkened gradually.

"What is it?" Alec asked her after a while. "How bad did they—"

"Not badly enough," she said before he could finish. At Clary's sound of protest, she continued. "No, listen: They were three, fully trained, and supposedly sent to kill you – that's what we need to assume if they were under the same kind of control as that group that caught us in Dublin. But what they did was mostly just bruise you. Badly, yes, but still – I am sorry, Clary, but while you've improved a lot, if three adult Shadowhunters catch you unarmed and plan to kill you, you don't come out of it with a black eye, a split eyebrow and a couple of cracked ribs."

Alec's eyes narrowed. "You're right. If that was what they were sent to do, they could have just drawn their blades."

"And they had plenty of time before we got there," Izzy continued. "Even without weapons, they should have been able to finish their job. And we have to assume that they did. They weren't out to kill – just to hurt."

"A warning then?" Jace asked. He had Clary's hand in his now, his fingers dashing over the scrapes and swellings. Yes, activating an _iratze_ rune would have been faster, but this worked just as well and didn't come with the side effects of the stele. He just hoped that no one would look at the feed and question them about why they'd been taking so long.

"A warning about what?" Clary asked. "And from whom? Valentine doesn't exactly do warnings."

Izzy's expression turned thoughtful. "That is exactly what I'd like to know."

 

 

April 23rd, 2017

It wasn't their announcement that they'd be in Jace's room if needed that kept them in place for the night, but their reluctance to split up. The relative safety of the institute, already much lessened in comparison to what it had once been for them, had dissipated entirely. If there was any further attempt to harm them, it would be much easier to go through with it if each of them was alone.

They were up again by the time Aldertree finally came calling. He brought two other men with him. One of them had been on the last night's security detail. At their boss' sign, they stopped just inside the door, while he approached another step.

"Good morning," he said amicably. "May I come in?"

"You're already in," Jace pointed out, motioning at a chair. "Did you find out why Clary was attacked?"

The older man sat where indicated. His face was a perfect image of serenity. "How is Miss Fairchild?" he inquired, looking around. "Where is she right now? Did she have to go to the infirmary after all? I was told her injuries weren't anything that you couldn't take care of on your own." If they hadn't known better, they might have believed he was genuinely worried.

"Bathroom," Izzy said curtly as she walked over to knock on the door. "Clary? Can you hurry up? Mr. Aldertree's here to bring us up to speed."

"Coming!" Came the reply, muffled by the closed door.

"What did those three have to say?" Jace tried again. He had sat down on the edge of his bed, leaving the other chair to Alec. Izzy remained standing, her arms crossed.

Aldertree gave him a regretful look. "Nothing. They're not talking." He gestured towards the door. "Let's wait until everyone's here."

"Everyone is." Clary came into the room, her hair still wet. She'd been moving a little stiffly when they had first gotten up that morning, but she was either making a great effort to conceal any lingering aches, or the hot shower had washed those away.

She sat next to Jace and gave Aldertree an expectant look. "Well?"

"You do look quite recovered, Ms Fairchild," he observed as he inspected her. It was impossible to tell if he thought that that was a good thing.

"I've had worse in battle," Clary claimed. "My friends came quickly enough to even out the odds."

"Is that so?" Aldertree mused. "How did they know to come to your aid in the first place? I have been trying to figure that out all night…"

"You would have done better to figure out what those three wanted of her." Alec's voice was a low growl. "We have each other on speed dial. She started the call when she realized she was in trouble. Her phone may have been in her pocket to keep her hands free, but we heard enough to know she needed help."

"Good thinking," the older man observed, his voice and face carefully neutral.

"We've had a few situations when travelling," Clary told him calmly. "We've learned to be prepared."

"Clearly," Aldertree noted. "Do you have any idea what those three wanted of you?"

She shook her head. "You'll have to ask them, but I am afraid it won't help much. The way they were coming at me – I think they were under mind control. I told the security guys about that yesterday, too."

"How do you know what mind control looks like?" one of the men by the door threw in. He clearly didn't believe a word she said.

All four of them gave him an icy stare.

"We had an encounter with a group that was affected earlier this year," Alec said after a moment. "It's on record. In fact, it's on record with a positive remark for having managed to contain the situation without any fatalities or severe injury, so it should kind of stand out if you'd actually bother to check your facts – or our past."

"I'd thank you to let _me_ conduct this interview, Jerry," Aldertree added, sounding only marginally more cordial. "These four have experience beyond their years. If Ms Fairchild says that the three were mind-controlled, then that is what I will assume as a fact. Besides – all the evidence points to it that she is right."

Alec looked at Aldertree through narrowed eyes. "We can't tell you anything the video feed won't show. It all happened close enough to the door that at least the beginning must have been recorded. We didn't talk to any of them."

"They didn't say anything," Clary added. "They just came at me. I tried to move away at first, but they kept coming. They didn't react when I tried to talk to them."

Aldertree gave a thoughtful nod. "I fear that that is still the case."

"What?" Jace leaned forward slightly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that they don't talk. The three who attacked Ms Fairchild were taken to a cell last night, to await questioning. When we got around to that, they were still as they had been left. I suspect that if they had been left on their own, they would still be standing like that, and continue to do so until they drop. They walk where you lead them – but it appears that their minds are gone."

"Gone?" Alec asked. "The ones from Dublin were fine once they woke up."

"We must assume a different mechanism," Aldertree told him. "They were examined in the infirmary last night. I had a small conference with Alicante this morning – that was why it took me so long to come around to talk to you, in fact. They're being transferred to Idris as we speak, but if our medics' judgment is anything to go by – there's just nothing in those bodies anymore."

All four made an effort not to react. That sounded reminiscent of the state their friend Aline had been in when Helen had spirited her away from the institute they'd been assigned to at the time to protect her. Charlie had been able to free her from the mental prison she'd been locked into. But there had been no mind control involved there…

…though Helen had mentioned that Aline had done anything she was told in that condition.

"Do they react to verbal commands?" Alec asked. "I mean – is this a consequence of whatever kind of mind control they were under, or is it part of the control?"

Aldertree gave him a surprised look, as if he either hadn't considered that option or hadn't expected Alec to do so. "Only the very simplest," he said. "'Kill Clarissa Fairchild' surely would have been too complex."

"Beat up Clarissa Fairchild," Clary corrected. "They were three, and since the security teams were apparently busy with other things instead of watching out for disturbances and alarms, they were only stopped when my friends arrived. If they'd meant to kill me – I don't think I'd be sitting here now."

This time, the perplexed expression on Aldertree's face seemed genuine. He truly hadn't thought of this aspect yet. "I'll consider this," he told them. "I'm not sure it changes anything. We cannot track where whatever influence they were under – are under – came from. We can only hope for better news from Alicante, and I must urge you all to be careful."

"We will be," Alec assured him. "May I assume that we are not under arrest and those two gentlemen by the door are there merely for decoration?"

The older man laughed at that. "You may indeed. I would like you all to take the day off, though. I'm sure your night was short, and we wouldn't want some demon to do what those three didn't, would we now?"

"We're fine," Jace started to object, but Alec nodded.

"We would have liked a look at those three," he said. "But I assume it's too late for that. I agree to skipping patrol for today. Where were those three assigned yesterday? I assume that whatever the influence they were under was, they encountered it outside of the institute."

"We haven't gotten that far," Aldertree told him. "Priorities were on handling their condition this night, not on retracing their steps."

Alec somehow managed to keep a neutral expression. "We'll get on that, then. No need to pull anyone else off their duties. Sir." The last came almost as an afterthought.

The men by the door bristled again, but they said nothing.

Aldertree inclined his head. "That seems safe enough," he determined. "I'll be waiting for your report, Mr. Lightwood."

 

_Calgary_

"You look good, young man," Gwen said when they passed her.

Hodge felt himself blush. "Your colleagues said something similar over breakfast," he muttered. "It was Katie's idea."

"You should listen to her more often," the old woman informed him.

Instead of pointing out that he hadn't known Katie for long enough for there to be any established ratio of times where he listened to her versus where he didn't, he found himself rubbing a hand over his chin self-consciously. It felt strange.

Charlie and Katie had been in agreement quickly the night before. They had trimmed down his beard until it was barely more than a suggestion on his skin, before they had tackled his hair. He'd half-expected there wouldn't be any left at all when they were done. A look in the mirror had surprised him.

There was, in fact, plenty of his hair still on his head, though it was now cut and combed into something that could be called a hairstyle. It was some change from the strictly practical way he had worn it before, cutting it straight off before it got into his eyes and not bothering with it much otherwise.

The difference it made was amazing. If it hadn't been for the familiar half-moon scar on his cheek, he might have wondered who the man looking back at him from the mirror was.

Well, that and the eyes, with a haunted look in them that he wished he knew how to get rid of.

As Charlie had continued to adjust some strands with a comb and a brush, he thought he could see highlights of a lighter blond appear where she touched it.

She'd noticed it, too, and apologized. "I'll make it change back," she'd promised. "But I think your hair _wants_ to look sunbleached."

"My hair doesn't get an opinion in this," he had returned, but stopped her before she could reach out to force the lightening to undo itself. "What do you think?" The last had been targeted at Katie.

"I like it!" She'd said, and her smile and voice had seemed genuine.

He had kept the highlights, and he had to admit that they added a nice nuance.

Gwen didn't offer any further comment, but continued on her way towards the stairs and into the apartment, while Katie led him out the back door to where the family's cars were parked.

Looking up into the bright sky felt disorienting. He'd been outside only briefly, that one time when he had tried to join Valentine again, after sixteen years of being forced to remain under a roof. He wasn't used to having this much space above him.

He wasn't sure how he had managed to be outside in New York on his own and not panic at the sheer vastness of the world outside the institute's walls. Having a clear goal in mind had probably helped.

While they had a goal now as well, it appeared that buying clothes worked a lot less well than handing over a stolen artifact to a proven criminal.

"You okay?" Katie asked with a glance at him.

He nodded. "Just not used to this."

"We can do it another day?"

"No." He forced a decisive tone into his voice. "I can't keep borrowing Brian's clothes. Besides, I don't want to give your aunties a chance to reconsider loaning me some money for this."

Katie chuckled at his words, and he hoped that that meant he hadn't failed entirely.

He could count the times he had been inside a car in his life on his hand and still have plenty of fingers left. Trying to remember how he had liked it the last time, he came up short. It seemed not to have left much of an impression with him.

The seat belt proved daunting. Who had come up with that kind of mechanism?

"Don't do that in a non-Gale car," Katie told him when she noticed. "Or in Charlie's, for that matter. But you can just leave it off in mine. It's charmed all over."

"Some of those seem to make it faster," Hodge noted as he studied the signs distributed across the vehicle.

She laughed. "Most of them are there to make it safer." She turned the key in the ignition, and he tensed when the vehicle started up and rolled, at a strangely slow pace, towards the street.

"Allie enlarged the backyard," Katie explained as she maneuvered carefully. "It's insanely strong charm work. She warped the fabric of Calgary until we could fit all the cars in here. It's a bit hard to gage distances, though."

He didn't comment on that. It wasn't possible to miss that Allie could match any warlock in power. If she had the ability to create a pocket universe in her backyard, however – and that was what Katie seemed to have suggested just now – he had to re-evaluate her strength once again.

*

For sixteen years, Hodge Starkweather had worn the clothes that were given to him by whoever was acting as the institute's quartermaster. He'd spent most of his days in training clothes, with a very few occasions requiring a more formal outfit.

"Preferences?" Katie asked as they were walking down the street, and he tried not to turn and stare continually at the busy city around him. He had forgotten how many people there were out and about.

Part of him wanted to tell her he had reconsidered and wanted to go home. He wasn't ready for this. It was—

He clamped down on the thought. "I'll bow to your greater wisdom," he said.

Were those people staring at him? Did they see how uncomfortable he found being out here right now? Was it his arm, ending at the wrist, that he held close to his body to prevent accidental and agonizing contact with anything? It made him fidget, trying to find a place to put his other hand, until Katie reached for it and twined her fingers through his.

"Try to relax," she told him, her thumb stroking a pattern on the back of his hand. "We're just another couple out for a stroll and some shopping."

He felt himself go even more tense at those words. Well, they probably looked like a couple, walking as they were…

It took another moment before he realized with a jolt that, considering what they had done the last two nights, there might be more to it than just _looking_ that way. The family certainly seemed to expect that.

"Are we?" he asked, his voice so low she could have easily claimed she didn’t hear him.

Her hand tightened on his. "If you're okay with it."

"Because the men choose?"

"Because I've spent the sixteen years you were cheated out of gaining experience and finding out what I want, and not giving you the opportunity to do the same would be unfair." She didn't let go of his hand, but she relaxed her grip on it again. "You're not ready to choose."

He wasn't going to contest that. Instead, he let her steer him into a shop and towards the first rack of clothes on sale. That made sense – he was using someone else's money for this, after all.

"Gale Luck," Katie elaborated, as if reading his thoughts. She held up a shirt as if trying to imagine him in it. "We usually have the best chances at finding what we are looking for in the places that will cost us the least."

She collected several more items before moving on to a bargain bin with t-shirts. To his relief, she went for single-colored ones, rather than ones with prints, and gave preference to blacks and dark blues.

"Okay. Let's see if any of these fit," she determined, steering him towards the changing rooms. On the way, she snatched a hoodie from another rack, not even bothering to check the size.

By the time they had gone through Katie's selection, Hodge had acquired some basic skill at dressing and undressing himself with only one hand. The heap of things Katie had deemed good enough to buy was considerably larger than that of pieces rejected – and those had been mostly because he had decided they were too much effort to put on.

The queue at the check-out desk had suddenly dissipated when Katie approached it, allowing her to pay in record time.

They went to two more shops after that, the procedure staying basically the same in each. He declined her offer to take a more active role in the selection. He rather liked what he saw in the mirror when he put on the clothes she suggested to him, and he didn't want to waste her time by trying to get his bearings anyway.

With the most pressing part of their tour complete, Katie steered him into an ice cream parlor and secured a corner table for them.

"We've earned a break," she claimed.

He studied the menu, sure that he hadn't even heard of three quarters of the flavors offered. "I'll take what you take," he decided after a moment.

"Oh come on," Katie returned. "Don't you see anything on there that you want to try?"

"Yes," he said, smiling. "Far too much to eat it all today. We might have to come back."

That led her to mirror his expression, a happy shine in her eyes, just before her face grew more serious again as her gaze fell upon something behind Hodge's shoulder.

He turned, unable to find the cause of her displeasure, until a short man with auburn hair shot through with grey approached their table.

"Shadowhunter," he said, a sneer in his voice. "We've done well without your kind in Calgary for years."

"I'm not on duty," Hodge returned, trying to place the man. Some sort of Seelie, he suspected.

"And there I thought your kind wasn't interested in interacting with the family anymore," Katie drawled, shaking her head in a slow, disapproving manner. "You see, Hodge, the Leprechauns took it a bit personally when Allie told them where to stick their plans to force Joe back into the Underworld. We haven't had one of them in the store since – other than Joe, of course."

"She _stole_ the changeling," the Leprechaun complained.

"He's not anyone's property to be stolen," the woman informed him.

That drew a laugh from the creature. Hodge found the sound jarring. It felt as if it vibrated in his bones. "The old woman might think differently."

"Strange as it sounds," Katie said evenly, "Auntie Gwen does know what boundaries are. Joe is aware of this." She gestured to a waiter and placed their order, ignoring the Leprechaun still standing by their table.

Hodge didn’t find it easy to follow her example. The short man was staring at him with unconcealed hostility. He raised his left arm, showing the stump of his wrist. "Not on duty," he repeated.

"Your kind is always on duty," the Leprechaun claimed.

"They're not my kind." He surprised himself when he heard the words coming out of his mouth. "I'm with her." He nodded at Katie, whose smile returned.

"You wear their marks."

Hodge made a face. "They don't exactly come off in the shower. I don't have a stele on me, so being there is all they do."

Except, he thought, that one of them already had come off. He wondered… was he serious enough about the things he had just said to agree to it to have the Aunties do with his other runes what they had done with the Circle one?


	16. Chapter 16

_Alicante_

Lydia still wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing when she knocked on the Lightwoods' front door.

When Maryse opened, one look at the woman convinced her that she shouldn't have come. Her friends' mother looked tired and pale, as if she'd either overworked herself or been sick.

Nevertheless, she smiled as she saw her visitor.

"Lydia! What a nice surprise!" It didn't sound faked, and Lydia relaxed a little. While much more practiced at diplomacy and strategic half-truths than Alec was at this stage of her life, Maryse wasn't one to outright lie without need either. "Come in."

She stepped aside, letting the younger woman into the corridor that led through the length of the building.

"I can come back another time," Lydia offered. "No offence but – you look like you've had a rough night."

Maryse gave a small laugh. "Rough few days," she admitted. "I fear I caught some sort of bug. Doesn't seem to be contagious, though. Max, in any case, is perfectly fine, and he's living here, after all."

"Your _iratze_ didn't heal it?" Lydia asked, concerned.

"It helps briefly, but it comes back," Maryse told her. "I don't want to use it too often either. It seems to be getting better now, though. My stomach hasn't actually declared rebellion on me yet today."

The younger woman frowned as she followed her host to the living room. "Are you certain this is a stomach bug?"

Maryse didn't turn around. "If you're asking if I'm sure that no one's trying to poison me and that's why it keeps coming back – no, I am not. But again, Max is living here, and we've been eating the same meals, so if that is the case, it's not in the food."

The words made Lydia stop short. Maryse sounded as if she was serious about this.

Noticing that her guest was no longer following, the other woman halted as well, turning to look back at her.

"Do you have reason to believe that someone is trying to harm you?" Lydia asked, speaking slowly as she tried to follow her own racing thoughts.

With a sideways movement of her head, Maryse indicated the living room. "Let's sit down before we talk," she suggested, though she did follow up on her words immediately. "There have been multiple attempts on my children's lives in the last months. Two of their friends have gone missing. It has crossed my mind."

Lydia didn't reply to that as they walked the rest of the way to the Lightwoods' generous but comfortable living room and settled, Lydia in the armchair and Maryse on the couch after she had poured her guest a cup of tea from the pot she had apparently kept at hand for herself. It smelled of vanilla and fruit.

"What brings you here?" she asked. "You clearly didn't know I haven't been well, so this isn't a sick call."

Staring into the dark liquid in her cup, Lydia let out a slow breath. "I've come to ask your advice," she admitted. "But if it's a bad moment…"

Maryse shook her head. "Go ahead," she encouraged. "I could do with some distraction."

Well, then… "Someone searched my office. At night, when I wasn't there. They fixed the video feed so it wouldn't be easy to prove, but I've found evidence…" She recounted her experience from two days before, explaining the steps she had gone through and the conclusions she had reached.

"I have no idea why someone would do that," she ended. "And I'm not sure who I can tell about this. Considering that someone involved had access to the cameras… unless there has been a regular schedule of secretly searching all the offices that I haven't been aware of, someone thought they'd find something in my things. And I have no idea what, or why."

Before Maryse could say anything in response, she raised a hand.

"I know Alec and the others are doing something they probably shouldn't be doing," Lydia added quickly. "I know they have phones that work in Alicante, and I have no idea how that is even possible or where they came from. I don't want to know. I _can't_ know. I told them as much. Considering where I work, what I work, I cannot be given knowledge of whatever it is they are doing. I might be forced to do things I really don't want to do. So don't tell me."

"They're doing exactly what they should be doing," Maryse said calmly. "If you don't want to know, why did you come?"

Why had she indeed? Lydia suddenly didn't feel all that sure anymore. Maybe, in some corner of her mind, she had wanted to be talked into being let in on whatever secret there was.

"Mostly I just needed to share what happened with someone I trusted not to declare me insane for saying it," she ventured after a few moments. "And… I wanted to know your opinion. Am I crazy for thinking that this is connected to Alec and the others?"

Maryse sipped her tea, delaying her answer. To Lydia's scrutinizing gaze, however, the verdict was clear on the older woman's face almost immediately.

"No," the response came eventually. "I think it is a logical assumption."

"What do I do now?"

She hadn't expected an answer to that, especially not after just telling Maryse she didn't want to be entrusted with any further knowledge. To her surprise, she got one anyway.

"If you're afraid that you may be in danger, talk to Elizabeth and Anestis Redwood. They might have some advice you can follow."

 

_New York_

Starting out with the footage from just before the attack on Clary, they had retraced the trio's steps to the point where they had returned to the institute from their afternoon mission. As far as they could tell, they had avoided contact with anyone, and spent a considerable time sitting in silence, not doing anything at all or speaking. Then at one point, they seemed to have woken up, crowded around a screen and zapped through the cameras until they had found Clary. They had left the room immediately thereafter, the screen with the camera feed still running.

Going back to where they had left for their mission showed them a different kind of behavior altogether: They were joking with the other members of their team as they prepared to leave and eventually departed together.

"They came back separately," Izzy observed. "Let's find the other three and ask them where they went precisely and when – and where – they were separated."

Finding them was easy enough.

Getting answers was not.

Hostile looks greeted the four when they approached their targets.

"Just a moment," Alec said when the group started to move away from them. "We need you to answer a couple of questions for us."

"And if we don't want to?" one of them inquired. "Will you do to us what you did to Sarah, Paul and Tara last night?"

"The only thing they did was defend me," Clary declared heatedly. "Those three attacked me out of nowhere, and we'd like to know why."

"Maybe they'd had enough of you strutting around here as if you own the place," the man who had spoken first suggested. "When everyone knows you shouldn't even be in an institute to begin with." His glare included all four of them.

Alec decided to ignore both the glare and the statement. "You went out with those three yesterday, but you came back alone, about half an hour after they did. I'd like to know when you split up, and where."

The man shrugged. "I don't remember."

Izzy raised her eyebrows. "What do you think the head of our institute will say if we have to report to him that, sadly, the people we asked for the information we're charged with collecting are suffering from amnesia?" she asked.

"He'll probably order a medical check-up," Jace replied. "And if the cause can't be found, a transfer to Alicante for a more thorough examination may be in order."

"Are you threatening us?" The leader of the group before them asked.

Before any of them could reply, one of his companions stepped forward. "They're not worth it, Jake. I don't want to have to discuss this with Aldertree." He looked at Alec. "We split up to comb the area we'd been assigned more quickly. It's a permitted procedure. We were two sets of three. Plenty enough for a patrol."

Alec nodded, indicating for him to go on.

"They didn't come to the meeting point afterwards, and they didn't answer their phones. When we got back, we heard they had already come in, but they were avoiding us. We didn't talk to them after that."

Jake was glaring at him, while Alec inclined his head in a graceful acknowledgement of the assistance rendered. "Can you show us on the map where you split and what area they were supposed to work through?"

 

_Calgary_

Hodge stood by the open window, looking outside. He hadn't thought it had been long enough to be noticed, but there was Allie, moving more silently than any pregnant woman had any right to.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

The question was innocent enough, but he could hear the underlying meaning.

About to deny what he had been thinking, he stopped himself. He wasn't in the institute anymore. He wasn't sworn to never leave this place. He hadn't done anything wrong by getting a bit of fresh air. "I was just thinking that it's such a nice day outside."

"It really is." She moved away, leaving him to his musings – or so he thought.

He'd just started to wonder what Katie might say if he suggested another trip to the roof terrace, when something was placed on the window sill in front of him with the sound of metal on metal.

Looking down, he found himself staring at a key ring and a phone.

"Apartment, roof terrace, back door, front door, garage," Allie counted out the keys. "The city's laid out in a grid, so you shouldn't get too lost either way, but if I was you, I'd take the phone anyway. It has GPS. We're at 1223 9th Avenue S. E."

He was still staring – first at the keys, then at Allie. He started to reach for them, but stopped himself after the first jerk. "You'd let me wander outside?" he would have liked to sound amused, but he heard stark disbelief in his voice. "Not just on the roof, but out of the building? Unsupervised?"

Allie pushed the keys towards his hand. "You're an adult man who is no longer in any risk of fainting and being carted off to a hospital by some well-meaning passer-by. You're not our prisoner or our hostage. Unless you and Katie take things to the next level and you move in with her, or unless you move in with her without taking things to the next level, _or_ unless you decide you'd rather have a place of your own, you're living here, so it's just logical that you should be able to get in and out on your own."

His fingers closed around the metal.

"Supper's at six," Allie said. "If you're late, you'll have to make do with the leftovers."

*

They had taken the opportunity the change to their schedule that day offered and come to Calgary early. A brief tour of the area the trio was supposed to have canvassed while separated from the others hadn't rendered any new insights.

Their preliminary report had gone to Aldertree, and they had been informed that the initial examination conducted in Alicante had not led to any findings of use so far. The three remained unresponsive, their minds seemingly gone from their bodies.

Intending to run the situation past the Gales in order to get an outside opinion, they had made their way to the Emporium.

Since Allie had acquired a number of unsorted boxes of magical odds and ends that morning, they were sitting in the store now, rather than the living room, talking as they watched and helped her sort the items.

"I've seen that effect before," Magnus declared to their surprise when Alec had finished his account of their findings to date. "As a side effect of sloppy demon mind control."

"Demon mind control?" Izzy asked him, looking up from the bag of glass beads she'd been studying. "Like possession?"

"Not possession in the way we would define it," Magnus told her. "Mundanes might call it that, though. Usually, if you want to take control of someone's actions, you need to get past their own personality first, and either convince them they want to do what you plan for them, or push them aside to where you can actually take control. If you don't have the time – or if you don't care – and you're strong enough, you just barge in and displace them. But there's only so much space within a single mind, so if you do that, you're likely to destroy what was already in there – and then you get precisely the effect you've seen with those three."

"So in that case they'd have been gone from their bodies already when they came back to the institute?" Alec asked him. "That would explain why they were just sitting there staring at nothing until they were reactivated to go out and have a go at Clary."

"How many people could a single demon control?" Jace wanted to know.

Magnus gave a half-shrug. "I don't know. My first guess would have been one at a time, but a strong demon – especially one that may be used to controlling other demons – might be able to handle more than that."

"You mean we may be up against a greater demon here?"

Alec didn't like the thought. It opened up a number of other issues. The attack had come after they had started interfering with the demon activity and actually come in time to prevent more than one of those attacks from progressing very far. Had that attack been meant as a warning to them?

A greater demon in New York would be bad enough, but a greater demon in New York that had been collecting power for some sort of working or another for weeks would be worse.

"Assuming this is connected to the source of our other issue," Izzy said, apparently thinking in the same direction as Alec had, "why didn't it just take over us? Or one or several of us? Why go to this extra effort when we were right out there every day?" She opened another bag of glass beads and dropped it immediately as if something had stung her hand.

"Maybe because you have shields on you that those others didn't have," Allie told her. "What's wrong with the bag?" She reached out to pick it up from where it had fallen on the counter.

"Not the bag," Izzy said. "The beads… it was like they were staring at me. And yelling. And trying to grab me. Except of course they can't."

Allie sketched a charm on the silk fabric before opening the drawstring and squinting inside.

She didn't drop the bag, but she did close it again firmly, added another few charms and fished a separate bag out from under the counter that she dropped it in. "This goes into the vault," she declared, marking the outer bag for good measure.

"What is it?" Clary asked curiously. The 'vault' was the room where the family stored some of the artifacts left over from Jack's father – too dangerous to be sold, too valuable or too volatile to be destroyed and too unpleasant to be used.

"Those balls are meant to capture spirits," Allie said, gesturing at the first bag Izzy had handled. "And that one contains the ones already filled."

"You mean there are – what? Souls inside?" the younger woman sounded appalled.

Allie dropped the bundle into a box and reached for the next item from her purchases. "If that's what you want to call it. What's in there felt malicious, though, so probably more like what you'd call demons. If they were just feeling desperate or sad at being caught, I'd destroy the beads and let them go, but I fear if we did that, we'd spend the next few weeks fixing what we broke. So they stay where they are."

She took the other bag and labeled it, the price on it probably enough to pay the store's expenses for the rest of the year. A small group of charms went below the prize tag, averting the eyes of anyone who would use the beads for dubious purposes.

Alec glanced at it, wondering what the purpose of those things was anyway. Sure, they seemed to contain demon essences nicely and securely, but what was the point? They couldn't be used for anything, and if he was any judge of demons, then they would turn against their captor immediately if released. The bag of filled beads didn't suggest that they'd been meant as a means of transport to a location where they could be banished safely…

"A demon banished can return," Magnus said, as if guessing at his partner's thoughts. "In there, they're contained. But of course you might just give a bead or two to your enemies and see if they manage to release what's inside. It probably won't care the person who let it out wasn't the person who put it in."

"I don't assume we can borrow a few to grab a demon or two and take them where it's safe to question them?" Izzy asked.

Allie gave her a sharp look. "Do you know how to handle them?" she asked. "Because I don't."

Unfortunately, Izzy had to admit that she didn't. Just as she was about to announce that she was willing to check out the library and see if she could find any instructions, the door opened to admit a customer.

The woman in nondescript gray clothing nodded at Allie, ignored the others and walked straight towards Jace, who was sitting behind the counter and recording the additions to the store's inventory. Years of Valentine's drill had given him the neatest handwriting out of the lot of them.

"I've heard you're planning to settle here," she said as Jace put down his pen and turned towards the mailboxes.

"News travels fast, and not always entirely accurately," he replied. There was only a single small box inside the cubicle, which he took out and put down in front of her.

She looked at him, her head cocked to one side. "We've been discussing what to do about it."

"Are you supposed to tell me that?" Jace asked carefully.

The loireag came to the store most days that he was there, and they had joked that she had cast an eye on him, though she never went beyond the most basic of flirting. She didn't bother anyone, and she never tried to lure any of the guests to her part of the river – in fact, she insisted that she hadn't drowned anyone since before Allie had settled in the city – so no one minded her presence. There had been a few times when she had hinted at things going on in the Seelie community of Calgary, but she'd never been so open in her disclosure before.

The loireag shrugged. "No one said I shouldn't, so I can," she claimed. "It's not like it's a secret I come here."

Well, so did a good part of the other Seelie in Calgary who weren’t using traditional residences. Offering mailboxes for those was only one of the services the store provided in addition to its merchandise.

Alec straightened from where he was sitting and came over to lean against the counter. "What are the options?" he asked.

"Hasn't your mother taught you not to barge into other people's conversation, angel-boy?" The loireag demanded, uncharacteristically challenging.

"He's my boss," Jace told her. "He's allowed to."

At the same time, Alec shook his head. "No offense, lady, but I'd rather not be compared to them. I don't think we're on the best of terms right now."

She looked surprised. "But you're their creatures. Their creations. Their weapons." Her expression darkened with every word.

"Weapons that have started to think for themselves and shed the control of their creators," he said. "You're right – we want to make this place our base, but we are not planning to establish an official Shadowhunter presence here. Not the way it usually goes. If we can find a place in the community, we'll take it. Until then, we live by Allie's rules."

There was a moment of silence as she thought it through. "There may be hope for you yet," she noted eventually. "How many are you bringing?"

Alec almost said "no one", but stopped himself just in time. "I don't know," he told her instead, truthfully. "Our families may be in danger. We will not leave them unprotected."

"No one asked you to," the loireag pointed out. "But do not think that turning against your creators will endear you to many among the Fey. They won't like it and their wrath will be terrible when they find you. None of us will want to be caught in that."

"We will try not to have it out with them in Calgary," Alec promised.

She laughed, shaking her head. It was an indication of her agitation at the thought that droplets sprayed from hair that had previously seemed dry. "Don't overestimate your powers, little rebel," she said. "You won't be given a choice. You have nothing that you could throw against them to keep them from choosing the ground on which they will destroy you."

"They might not," Allie said without looking up from where she was penciling prices on a set of post cards that each contained a magic spell or recipe integrated into the design. "But I do." It was said with enough conviction that the loireag didn't even try to contradict her.

She gave Jace a sad look. "I'll tell the others," she said. "I'll tell them they won't need to prepare for a day when they might have to stand against you. You're about to destroy yourselves."

With that, she turned, leaving the group to ponder what she had just said.

"I think she just likes drama," Jace determined eventually. "That other time she announced we were going to set our world on fire."

"You realize," Izzy said slowly, looking through the window and watching the receding figure of a water spirit on the way back to her river, "that that is exactly what we've committed to doing."

*

Hodge came back with plenty of time to spare for supper. Briefly, he had considered staying out just to see if they'd let him. Ultimately, he had decided against it. He was getting hungry. He also didn't want anyone to worry about his continued absence, though they could always call or text him if they were wondering if anything had happened to him.

The store was open now. It had some odd opening hours, but that was probably to be expected of a location that sold as much magic as it sold junk.

Pushing the door open as if he was a customer, instead of walking around to the back door that he had used to leave earlier, he was taken aback to see that the man behind the counter wasn't Joe. In fact, the man behind the counter was about the last person he would have expected in the position of a store clerk.

"Jace!"

Hodge remained rooted where he was. So did the young Shadowhunter, until Jace briefly closed his eyes and swallowed visibly.

"Hodge, you look terrible."

It was clearly not what he had planned to say, and Hodge couldn't help a chuckle. He ran his hand through his hair. "I thought it didn't look so bad," he said. "You might want to talk to Katie and Charlie, though. Most of the fashion advice came from them."

"I didn't—" Jace clearly made an effort to process what he saw. "I didn't mean the hair. Or the clothes. I – The door." He pointed. "The charms. They're called a Clear-Sight. They show you things – people – as they really are. Not the way they appear. It helps us tell what's coming in. Forewarned…" He shook his head, forcing himself to keep from rambling. "You're still so faded. I could see the street through you."

Hodge looked at the door. He could see the charms, but they were mostly unfamiliar to him. He could guess at which one was the Clear-Sight, though. He should probably be glad there wasn't a way he could see himself through the glass. "They make me potions to help with that." He hoped that sounded reassuring. "Why are you … there?" he gestured vaguely at the counter.

Jace shifted uncomfortably. "We need some money that's not trackable by the Clave. We're not exactly qualified for a lot of Mundane jobs, and we can't just go and get a job in New York anyway. Also, some of the customers seem to like me. The loireag hangs around to chat when she gets her mail. She even bought a yoyo once. I think that was more by accident because she didn't want to seem like she was flirting with me." His eyes kept wandering down, though he forced them back towards Hodge's face each time. "Hodge, I'm—I'm sorry about your hand. I—" He was fishing for words, though clearly not very successfully.

Clearing the distance between them with a few quick steps, Hodge reached out to grasp the younger man's arm. "Jace. Neither of us has much to be proud of where that day is concerned. Beating yourself up over it won't change it. It happened. It's done. I'll live. Did Alec give you my message?"

Jace stopped chewing on his lower lip as he nodded. "I didn't think you meant that."

"I do," Hodge said. "I'll have to find a place for training, though. I should get to that. The shoulder's all healed. So's the wrist." He slightly lifted his arm out of the sling he still used. "It's just damned sensitive if I bang it on anything, and it keeps swelling out of all proportion if I point it the wrong way for too long, hence the precaution."

"We mostly go to the park or the manor house," Jace said, carefully watching Hodge's reaction. "More the park than the manor house, unless someone wants to swim. They've got a pool. Some people don't much like it when Graham and Alec set up targets in their garden, though." Finally, a grin tugged the corners of his mouth upwards. "I've no idea why… it's not like either of them is capable of missing at that distance."

"I'm not capable of missing at any other distance either," Graham's voice came from the door, as if summoned. "I'll take the store for a while. You two go on upstairs. Supper's almost ready."

Hodge turned to nod at him. "We're on our way," he said. "Jace, if you don't stop looking at me that way, I swear I'll show you that I only need one hand to beat you up, here and now."

"Not in the store!" Graham declared. "Some of this stuff is fragile." He had crossed over to the counter in the meantime and was pushing Jace the way he had come.

They said nothing as they walked through the hallway and towards the stairs, until they passed the large mirror. On the way down, Hodge hadn't taken the time to actually look at it. He'd been far too preoccupied with the concept of trying out his new freedom. Now, as he glanced into it, it became clear the mirror wasn't anything as straightforward as a piece of glass with a coated backside that threw back your own reflection at you.

It showed him and Jace well enough. They were both stark naked, his muscles far more defined than the younger man's. That wasn't what held his attention, though. An enormous pair of wings was rising from each of their reflections' backs, covered in shining golden feathers – his a dark honey shade where Jace's were sunlight reflected off polished metal, almost painful to look at.

"Wow."

Jace rolled his eyes. "It always does that."

"Which part of that?" Hodge wanted to know.

"All of that. It'll take your clothes off as long as it thinks you might react to it. It's always shown us with the wings. I guess it's a reference to having angel blood."

Hodge refrained from commenting that the mirror clearly still thought that Jace would react to his own naked image then. He equally refrained from reaching back to make sure there wasn't a feathery mass sprouting from somewhere near his shoulder blades.

*

"When do you need to portal back to New York?" Hodge asked when they started to clear the table after their meal.

Alec gave him a calculating look. "We have about an hour. If we need more time, I'm sure Charlie will help us out. Why?"

The older man sighed. "I think we have a few things to talk about. The sooner we get those out of the way…"

"I'll take you back later," Charlie said immediately, grinning at the look Hodge gave her. "What? There's no way you can get through all of that in an hour."

"Should I regret that I asked?" He tried to make it sound like a joke, but didn’t quite manage.

"I'll get the notes," Clary announced, walking through the living room and right into the large painting of a stag under a moonlit sky that decorated one wall of the room, moving through it just as if it was another door.

Hodge stared.

"She's using the Wood as a shortcut," Alec told him. "She'll be back quickly enough."

His former weapons' master didn't look any bit less perplexed after that explanation. "Has she always been able to do that?" he wanted to know. "Are you able to do that?"

The younger man shook his head. "We found out she could do that a few months ago. And no, we others can't. It's part of that special knack she inherited from her mother."

They stayed at the dining table, where it would be easier to lay out their notes at need than on the smaller sofa table. Alec leaned forward as Hodge shifted on his chair, his arms crossed in front of him as if he felt the need to protect himself against something.

"How much do you want to know?"

Silence stretched between them for several seconds before the older man spoke again. "I don't want to know anything," he admitted eventually. "But I have to know it all. Katie suggested a few things that were… disturbing, to say the least."

Alec nodded slowly, took a deep breath, then looked at Izzy instead of speaking. "Do you want to start, Iz? You came here first, and that's where it all began."

His sister gave him a brief smile before she turned towards Hodge. "So it all started last fall, when we were caught in a trap on a mission…"

They took turns relating the details of what had happened, their first meeting with the Gale family, the occurrences during that night in the park when they had first realized that there was something about their runes beyond what they were told.

By the time they started to get to the more shocking news, Clary had returned carrying a bag from which she produced notebooks, photocopies and an ancient, leather-bound volume.

Hodge listened with a rising sense of dread. He'd expected to hear some hard news, but what the four laid out before him, supplemented here and there by Magnus' additional input, went beyond his wildest imagination.

And yet, when faced with the documents they presented, he couldn't convince himself that they were mistaken in their interpretations.

They summarized their travels through the alternate dimension next, up to the point where they had found a dying Hodge Starkweather.

Hodge felt an icy cold swamp him as he heard how his counterpart had followed Valentine until his last day when, faced with knowledge he couldn't bear to ignore, he had confronted his old master and been killed for it.

"He said he'd seen Valentine talk to an angel once," Alec finished. "He died before he could get around to giving us any more details."

He paused, and without looking up from where his eyes were fixed on the table in front of his folded arms, Hodge could feel their collective gaze lingering on him.

"So that was why you saved me?" he asked after several moments of silence, his voice just above a whisper. "Because you wanted to know what it was that I saw?"

"It was how the thought first came up," Alec admitted. "Before that, we never talked about it seriously enough to give Charlie the idea."

"If it helps, Katie and I collected you on our own," the Bard threw in. "Because it felt like the right thing to do, and because all the evidence pointed to it that you never died – or at least never left behind a body. So don't blame them."

Hodge looked up at where she was standing leaning against the kitchen counter. "I'm not blaming anyone," he said. "I just still can't believe they were willing to go to such lengths – for me."

"We'd do more than that," Jace claimed. "And none of what we did or what we're willing to do is bound to whether you tell us anything or not."

To his own surprise, Hodge found his lips twitching into a lopsided smile as he studied Jace. "You've changed, you know," he noted. "All of you have, but you most of all."

"We've grown up," Jace claimed. "Had to."

"Maybe," their trainer allowed. "But there's more to it than that." He left it at that and pulled back his sleeve, exposing the arm that ended at the wrist. "I assume you don't have a stele at hand for me, and if you had you wouldn't want me to use it. Do you know if memory sharing works with a charm?"

Alec nodded, producing a slim silver rod that looked, for all intents and purposes, precisely like his stele. "Works perfectly. We've used it before."

He handed the device to Hodge, who studied it.

"It's a glamored pen," Izzy pointed out, holding up her own. "Marks things with charms just nicely and won't stand out unless we try to use it on anything other than ourselves."

Shaking his head with a little amusement, Hodge put the tip against the skin of his mutilated arm and started to draw. It left behind a shiny black line. Yes, this 'stele' had most definitely started its life as a pen, and it still retained some of its habits.


	17. Chapter 17

_Idris_

Hodge's memory took them into the countryside of Idris. Though two decades had passed since the day they were looking at, they recognized the place. They had travelled through that area several times in the recent months, and they had done so while paying precise attention to their surroundings as they needed to get past the misdirection wards leading to Wayland Manor.

It wasn't hard to guess that that was not where the young Hodge had been headed.

Far more likely, he'd been on his way to see Valentine – or his wife. The Fairchilds, Jocelyn's parents and thus Valentine's parents in law, held the next property over, and that was where the young couple had lived.

Instead of going to the branch that had led past the front door of Fairchild manor prior to its destruction, however, Hodge turned his horse away from the main road early, cutting across a meadow and skirting a field in bloom.

Though there was no visible indication that anything out of the ordinary was going on, they could feel his sudden tension, a feeling of _wrongness_ surging through him as his mount balked, shying away from something he – and by extension they – couldn't see.

He muttered under his breath as he reined in the animal and dismounted. In the strange way that shared memories worked, they knew without being told that it wasn't his. He had borrowed it from the stables, and he didn't want to risk being thrown and losing the horse.

Glancing around, he found a tree that he deemed sturdy enough to tie the gelding to. Luckily, the horse quieted with every step they moved away from their destination.

The animal secured, Hodge turned once more, walking with slow, deliberate steps back the way he had just come. He had to admit that he didn’t want to get any closer to whatever was lurking there than the poor horse had.

The four sharing his memory couldn't blame him, caught in the echo of his sensations as they were. They felt the strange mixture of awe and stark terror caused by something unseen ahead.

Sticking to what cover he could find, Hodge moved forward, his approach slowing with every second that passed as he forced himself closer and closer to the source of that sensation. He needed to know what was going on there. It came from the direction of the manor. Valentine had had some sort of plan he hadn't shared the details of. They'd been supposed to meet up with him later.

Out of a need to talk to the man and request some advice from him in private, Hodge had decided to arrive early. And now—

Now he was afraid that whatever their leader had done had failed, and something terrible had happened. That thought was what made him go forward, though every fiber in his body was trying to revolt and flee that looming presence.

He froze as he peered around the greenery he was currently using as cover, a sense of disgust with himself almost drowning out the terror of that presence.

How had he been able to imagine, even for the briefest moment, that Valentine might have failed at his self-appointed task?

Because of course he hadn't, and what he had just seen in that fraction of a second before he had concealed himself again, had been the ultimate proof that what Valentine was planning was blessed work. That what they were doing was the will of the angels.

The angels. For there was Valentine, proudly standing and bathing in the presence of one of them, apparently impermeable to that aura of holy fear.

Though he knew he shouldn't, he lifted his head again slowly, needing to catch another glimpse of the scene before him.

The angel was glorious. Standing, he was about a head taller than Valentine, wings of a pure silver so bright it looked almost white towering above him. Staring at him, Hodge realized that it wasn't so much fear that he felt at the sight, but simply an overwhelming sense of a presence so much greater than him that it was nearly impossible to bear.

Yet Valentine – and what better proof could there be of his exalted status? – was standing comfortably before the higher being, listening to words Hodge couldn't make out through the rush of the blood in his ears and the pounding of his own heart.

Valentine answered, a smile on his lips. The angel nodded benevolently at him as they conversed, until he suddenly raised his chin, the movement giving him the appearance of an animal scenting the wind for a moment.

No sooner had he thought that than the realization of what he had just done, though only in his own mind, hit him. That was not a comparison fit for an angel! He shouldn't—

The being's expression had changed, anger distorting its features now.

Anger that Hodge had no doubt was directed at him, the interloper. The trespasser.

Now the fear that overcame him was not metaphysical anymore, and it drove him back, away from the pair before him.

The memory blurred. He had little recollection of how he had made his way back to the horse, untied the reins and scrambled up into the saddle to race away from the place.

 

_Calgary_

"I was very late to that meeting," Hodge said as he broke contact and ended the shared memory. "I needed to shower and change first. My things were soaked through. I thought anyone would have to smell the terror on me… But after that day, I never doubted that what he was doing and saying served a higher purpose. Not until much, much later. And I never did manage to reconcile that with what I learned then."

"We knew he was working with the angels somehow," Alec said. "I don't understand why he had Ithuriel captive, though. Something doesn't fit there."

"It fits somehow," Izzy pointed out. "Because we know it happened. We'll just have to find the pieces that link one to the other. That angel. Do you think that was, like – his handler?"

"His name's Uziel," Hodge said slowly. "I did the research back then. I wanted to know whom I had seen there. It took quite some digging. He isn't often mentioned."

They exchanged a look. It went without saying that they, too, were going to read up on that angel, and if there was anything to be found, they would find it.

Alec rubbed a hand over the enkeli rune on his arm. "I still can't believe I'm saying this, but so far we're part of the same system that Valentine serves – that he serves more than we could ever imagine. Like it or not, we're still gears in that machinery. If we want out of that, we need to break our ties – to them." He closed his eyes briefly. "To the angels."

"Runes can be removed," Hodge said, raising his hand to pull away the hoodie he wore and show the unmarked skin on the side of his neck. "The … the Aunties took away what remained of my circle rune."

"We don't know if removing the enkeli will draw their attention," Alec said, his voice low. "It's why we have stayed away from those so far."

Hodge focused his eyes on a point past Alec when he answered. "We could try removing one of mine. Then if anything happens, at least it won't hit one of you."

"Absolutely not!" Alec shot back. "If anyone's going to take that risk, it'll be me. Besides, Katie would kill me if I let anything happen to you!"

Charlie, still standing in the kitchen, laughed. "That's a valid assumption," she said. "And let me repeat that suggestion we made before: If you want to have your runes removed, let's do it as close to ritual as we can. With the amount of power flying around then, chances are better that they won't notice whatever else is going on."

Though he knew precisely what date it was, Alec glanced at the wall calendar Allie used to keep track of relevant family events. "We have a bit over a week then," he said. "I guess we should hurry up and get a grip on that demon issue in New York. I'd hate to leave it unfinished. But we'll have to work on the assumption that whatever happens, I wouldn't be able to return if we go through with a deruning. Even a glamor can only go so far."

"A glamor can go a long way," Jace reminded him. "Think of Jonathan."

That, of course, was true enough.

"If you'd have your runes removed," Izzy said, the tone of her voice a perfect match for the grave expression on her face. "What will happen to your _parabatai_ bond?"

The two young men glanced at each other, their eyes locking in a look that was so intense that it seemed as if they were somehow, impossibly, in silent communication.

It was Jace who spoke first. "We'll have to figure out a way to turn it into a charm. We can do that. We have an entire week for it."

There was more bravado than substance in that statement. The _parabatai_ bond was an intricate thing. Charms were something that could be wiped off, removed from the body with comparative ease. A _parabatai_ charm would have to be different.

A week, they all realized, was nothing to come up with a solution.

But a week was what they had, and if they didn't complete the task by then, the next chance they would get to attempt a rune removal under cover of the pending Ritual would be in six months.

"We _will_ figure something out," Charlie said. She sounded perfectly convinced of her words. "We'll come up with something. Never forget that Allie made a pocket universe with charms."

 

_New York_

Thanks to Charlie's elastic relationship with time, they returned to New York not long after they had left, giving them a few extra hours to work on the demon issue.

"All this time travelling is really messing with my sleep," Izzy claimed as she drew a caffeine charm on the inside of her wrist to counter the yawn that had just crept up on her. "I get tired at the oddest hours."

"Obviously this has everything to do with the time travelling," Jace laughed, "and nothing at all with the slightly complicated issues we have to deal with."

"Obviously," Izzy confirmed. The charm had taken hold and she was feeling as rested as if she'd just woken from a nap.

Alec had his phone out and was typing. His sister craned her neck to look at his screen.

"Who're you texting?" she inquired. "Can't be Magnus..."

That much was clear, because right now Magnus was sitting in the magic store with them, watching Allie sort her new purchases while the loireag tried to question Jace.

"Underhill," Alec reported without hesitation. "I'd like to discuss if those two found anything so far, but I don't want to do it in the institute."

It took less than a minute before his phone buzzed.

Alec turned it around for the others to see. The older man had sent a confirmation and a suggestion for a location.

"Another mundane place," Jace observed. "Are they going to misspell our names again?"

"Unlikely," Clary informed him. "It's really just the one chain that does that."

"We're not likely to run into anyone from the institute there who might report on us," Alec pointed out as he typed out his confirmation. "That's what matters."

*

Underhill and Youngwolf were already present by the time they arrived, the latter raising a hand to wave them over. The two men had secured a table in a wall niche, just large enough for a group of six if no one minded sitting close enough for knees to touch or shoulders to brush now and then.

In stark contrast to their usual behavior at the institute, their two older team members had taken seats side by side, their bodies in contact and their expressions approaching a relaxed state.

"I take it there's no risk any Nephilim will come here?" Alec asked as he folded his long body into the chair across from Underhill.

The man he'd addressed shook his head. "Never seen one here before."

"Thank you for sharing the place," Alec said. It didn't escape his notice that Youngwolf looked less than enthusiastic. "I'm sorry if we got in the way of your plans for the afternoon."

Underhill shook his head. "It's alright. I can't blame you for wanting to talk outside of the institute."

"Lindsay hasn't tried anything else," his partner pointed out. "Or at least nothing we could identify."

"I still don't need to be filmed while having a relevant meeting," Alec told him. "What did you find so far?"

He hadn't addressed one of them specifically with the last. Underhill decided to go first. "It took some digging, but I found a series of demon attacks that's reminiscent of the one we are facing here right now."

"When, where and how was it stopped?" Alec asked.

Underhill didn't even hesitate. "1995 and 1996, London, and it wasn't."

"It wasn't?" all four said almost at once.

The older man shrugged, somewhat one-sidedly. "Apparently, it just stopped. There isn't a whole lot of detail in the computer. This was before we routinely used the database to record mission reports. The original file in the London Institute probably has more information. I couldn't even find who was assigned to the case at the time. I sent a request for information to London but I haven't heard back from them."

Alec nodded. "Good thinking. Maybe we should ask Geordie Winterstorm for help with that – he was assigned to us when we visited London a few months ago."

"It might speed things up," Izzy agreed.

Jace was thinking. "How long did the attacks continue?" he asked. "Any significant numbers?"

"Like twelve or thirteen attacks?" Underhill asked. "No such thing. There were twenty-two attacks that are on record. There may have been more, of course. It went on over the course of close to two months. Again, that's what's on record, so it may have started earlier and not been recognized as part of the same series of attacks."

"Did you check if there were any others that are filed separately but fit the pattern?" Izzy wanted to know.

"Started to, but haven't come very far yet," he told her. "Again, it'd be easier if I could just type in search terms and get a list of missions or incidents that match, as I could if it was something more recent."

"Keep us posted if you find anything more," Alec said. "What about the other line of research?" He looked at Youngwolf.

The other man sighed. "Emotional energy is very powerful, and the kind of sudden drop from happiness to terror would produce a lot of power to use. Basically, going by the number of people targeted and the situations we've seen – well, if your theory is correct, we're facing someone trying to prepare for some major working."

"Major like what?" Jace asked. There was a little edge to his voice.

"I don't know," Youngwolf shot back. "But this kind of power is typically associated with workings related to specific aspects of dark magic. We may be looking at things like necromancy or someone trying to take over another body."

All four of them frowned.

"Like mind control?" Clary asked, rubbing her wrist.

"You don't need that kind of power for simple mind control," the man informed her. "I was thinking about displacing someone and taking over their body permanently."

They looked at each other. That was what Valentine had done upon his body's death, though it hadn't required any infusion of power, as far as they knew. Then again, his target hadn't had any mind left to speak of, after having been locked up in the City of Bones for years.

"We knew that whatever it was, it couldn't be good," Alec declared. "But it's all the more reason to stop whatever it is as soon as possible."

April 24th, 2017

_Calgary_

The morning had been almost disappointingly calm, without any demon activity that they could find, in spite of being back on their regular duty. Aldertree had, to their surprise, shared a message from Alicante that informed him that the condition of the three who had attacked Clary remained unchanged. They were scheduled for a transfer to the Silent City for further observation and potential treatment, should the Silent Brothers come up with anything.

After a quick lunch in the mess hall that they'd shared with Lindsay, Underhill and Youngwolf, none of whom had anything new to report, they had set out to continue their afternoon training – which actually meant skipping through the Wood to Calgary, where they were safe from institute eyes.

They split up once there, Alec disappearing with Magnus while Charlie collected Clary for another lesson in the finer points of using the Wood for transport. Having exchanged a few text messages with their former teacher, Jace had collected some of the weapons they stored in Calgary and gone to wait for Hodge in the park.

Izzy had left the house a few moments later, walking slowly up the street towards downtown Calgary.

She hadn't gone far before a tall, slender figure joined her.

"I didn't think you were serious when you first suggested this," Sebastian said. "But it was a nice surprise to get that text."

Izzy gave him a bright smile. "I don't joke about such things," she claimed, reaching out to see if he would let her link her arm with his. "May I suggest the Silvan Diner?"

"Certainly." He went along with her move, his expression matching hers now. "I've heard good things about it. Never been there, though. I have to admit, the city still is a bit daunting after all the time we spent on our own."

*

They walked in silence for a while. Thinking of how she had actually liked Sebastian before it had turned out that he was really nothing but the disguised Jonathan Morgenstern, she had thought it would be worth the effort to see how she got along with the real man.

Since Sebastian hadn't seemed disinclined at her suggestion to go out if they both had some time to spare, she had informed him the moment it had become clear that everyone but her had work for the afternoon.

The Silvan Diner was located in a single-story brick building, squeezed in between a hairdresser and a sandwich shop. Inside, it had a counter with a number of stools and booths with tables along the other side.

The young man behind the counter, wearing the diner's uniform sweater with pink and white stripes, watched them as they entered. Like most of the people who worked here, he had some Seelie blood – and certainly the Sight.

He gestured, indicating for them to take the booth closest to the door.

The expression on his face suggested that he had recognized them as something – if not as Nephilim then as Gale associates. He didn't want them too deeply in the room just in case trouble was going to brew around them.

Neither Nephilim nor Gales usually spent a lot of time in this place, which was firmly in the hands of the Seelie. With the addition of one of their ranks to the Gale family, however, lines were blurring, and a meal taken in the diner shouldn't have come off as a challenge.

While choosing this place may not have been the wisest decision, they hadn’t really had a lot of a choice. They weren't aware of any other downworld location that was open this early in the day, and Izzy didn't want to have to make use of Charlie's special services for the sake of going on a date.

They placed their orders, which were promptly served.

"How do you like our world?" Izzy asked when they had the relative privacy of their booth back. It seemed as good an opener as any.

"It's nicely undestroyed, as compared to ours," Sebastian replied. "Some days I still wake up ready to go face another day of Seelie threat before I remember that's not an issue anymore. I wouldn't mind going back to regular duty, but... Well, you know the issues with that."

She nodded. "Maybe there'll be something along the lines of regular duty again when we get to settling here for good. Have Aline and Helen made any plans?"

He gave a small shrug. "They're mostly waiting to see where Alec wants to take things. They're not going to wrest control of the group from him. No one really wants that position, you know."

Her smile was a little lop-sided. "Alec didn't want _this_ position either. But he'll do whatever it takes."

"So will we." He paused, studying his plate. "I'm worried about Chris. Using his demon powers is something he's always been afraid of. I can feel his worries and his fear whenever he goes to practice or to see Magnus about lessons." He sighed. "When he decided to stop, I was half relieved that that would be over. Also worried about what would happen if he didn't get any more training. And now…"

Now he was back to taking lessons, and hopefully getting somewhere with them.

"We need to get past the idea that there's a grand difference between us and downworlders," Izzy said earnestly. "When all's said and done, we're no better than warlocks, or werewolves, or whatever. We shouldn't be thinking in terms of 'them' and 'we'."

He looked at her quizzically. "Would you call yourself a downworlder?"

The question took her aback. Would she? She hadn't taken the thought that far yet. Giving it some more consideration, she came to a conclusion. "I'd rather call myself a downworlder than blessed by the angels," she told him eventually.

"Really?" That sneering voice had come from the direction of the counter.

Turning, they could see a group of three standing there, watching them. All of them wore only the slightest glamors they could get away with, their features just wrong enough to cause a disconcerting feeling in anyone who had the nerve to look at them directly. They wore jackets marking them as supporters of some sports team Izzy had never heard of before. Knowing what she did by way of the Gales, it probably was a basketball one.

"Really," she confirmed, deliberately turning her attention back to the table. She wasn't going to do anything that could be construed as a challenge.

The three came over with slow, ambling steps. The one who had spoken leaned his hands on the table next to her. "So would you swear allegiance to the Court?"

"No." The answer came immediately and with a decisive tone. "I would not be associated with any one group. I'll cultivate my neutrality."

The Seelie scoffed. "Neutrality, my ass. Who's ever heard of one of you being neutral?"

"Rejoice in knowing you're among the first, if it helps," Izzy suggested. She did a mental check of the weaponry on her body. She had her whip that she never left the house without, as well as her boot dagger and a glamored sword on her belt.

She wasn't going to attack, but if the Seelie chose to take that route, she would be ready.

Sebastian also had tensed, though he tried to conceal it.

"We like having safe ground here," their unbidden guest informed her. He was leaning closer, showing teeth too numerous and pointed to be human. "Without interference from the _Clave_." The last word was spat as if it was an insult.

Looking up at him again, Izzy made the corners of her mouth twitch into a sort of smile. "You're in good company," she said. "So do we."

"You don't seriously expect us to believe that?" That was one of his companions speaking. "The tale of the renegade little angels running from their masters and hiding out in Calgary among us, ready to actually live in peace with the community present?"

"You shouldn't have hooked up with the Gales of all people in that case," the third said. "There is no neutral with them."

"When have they ever interfered with your world?" Izzy asked. She glanced at Sebastian, who was watching, but made no move to join the conversation.

The Seelie closest to her actually rolled his eyes. "When haven't they? Don't you know they're harboring a changeling among them who should have returned to take his rightful place at Court years ago?"

"Joe is no more the property of the Court than he is the property of Gwen Gale," Izzy pointed out. "The difference is that he chose Gwen and he certainly didn't choose the Court."

"That is not our way." The second Seelie moved in closer, his posture crossing the threshold from challenging into threatening.

The front door fell shut with a crash loud enough to suggest it had been closed like that on purpose. All of them turned, taking in the newcomer.

Uncertain of whether to be relieved or even more alarmed, Izzy put down her fork.

"It is now," the man who had entered said. He was tall and broadly built, his clothes fitting strangely on his frame. The cowboy boots on his feet made clacking sounds as he approached, every step measured precisely. "You'd do well to remember that. Elessar made his call. If you don't like it, you can leave."

Izzy kept her eyes on her plate. She didn't need to let them see her grin. So Elessar's bodyguard had taken it upon himself to join the debate on their side.

Or, she corrected herself mentally, most probably on his prince's side, which at least was not the side of those three who had accosted them. Elessar had, after all, designs to make a Gale woman his wife under Seelie customs just as he already had under Gale ones.

"What's it to you, Glashtyn?" The Seelie made an honest effort to keep the defiance in his voice and the challenge in his posture, but neither was very successful. The glashtyn, who called himself Gary in his glamored shape, usually all but disappeared in the presence of the siblings he followed. Alone, however, he was a force to be reckoned with, and his usual position by the prince's side gave him a certain leverage.

"I actually like the way things are going right now," Gary said, surprising Izzy. "I wouldn't mind staying for longer than the time Elessar plays on the team. So back off and don't get in the way. That is—" The smile on his face was far too sweet to be genuine. "Unless you want to go out back and discuss this in private?"

Frowning, the other Seelie moved a small step away from the table. Clearly, he didn't fancy a direct confrontation with the shape-changer.

"Thought so," Gary said. "Too bad, though. I haven't had one of your kind in a few centuries. I've almost forgotten what they taste like."

*

Unsure of what Hodge was planning, Jace had taken an assortment of weapons to the meeting.

The older man arrived, walking side by side with Katie Gale. Jace couldn't help a grin at the sight. He had never pictured Hodge with a woman before, and there were moments when his former trainer looked at her with an expression as if he didn't quite believe what was happening there himself.

He fell into step beside them, turning off the street and down the path that led into the park.

"Where are we going, precisely?" Hodge wanted to know as they proceeded. "How large is this place?" he glanced back, and had apparently just realized that they were drawing out of sight of the street.

"It's large," Jace told him. "I haven't measured it, but it's pretty damned huge. We're going past the place of power. We've marked some ground there so no mundanes will come in and interfere with our training."

"What do you mean by place of power?" Hodge asked.

It was Katie who answered this time. "There's a place in the park where power leaks through – a lot. The first peoples used to have a place of worship there, though we don't know if they produced the leak on purpose or if they placed it there because of the leak…"

She linked her arm through Hodge's as they continued to walk. He tensed at the contact for a moment, before making a visible effort to relax.

"Then someone built a standing Gate into the UnderRealm there. That's what you call the Seelie Realm. Allie closed that one up a few years ago. Jack still opens it now and then if he needs to go through. It won't stay open beyond his use, though. But, anyway – that's where the family anchored when we first came to Calgary, and where we draw our power from."

They had just reached the top of a small rise when the sounds of a bird flying fast towards them cut through the air.

Turning, Jace spotted the brown shape just in time to raise his arm reflexively. Strong talons grasped his wrist and forearm. The chirping sound of a content falcon accompanied the ruffling of feathers as the bird settled.

Hodge raised his eyebrows in surprise as the bird sidled closer to Jace's elbow, from where it stretched to run its beak through his hair.

"I didn't know you were a bird whisperer, Jace," he noted.

A grimace accompanied Jace's attempt to evade the bird's caresses. "I'm really not. It's just that we met these birds in the other dimension and they think they belong to us now." He frowned at the one he was carrying, though he made no move to chase her away. With Charlie's help, they had once ridden inside the birds' minds for scouting. The animals had probably earned a place among them.

"It certainly looks like it's adopted you," Hodge mused.

"Yeah, no." Jace used his free hand to push the bird's head aside. "She just wants pie. Feeding them with that once when they were close to starving was a mistake." Once, he had sounded perfectly sincere when he had said those words. Now, the statement seemed more perfunctory, and his heart not really in it.

"Do you come down to the park and feed them?" Hodge asked.

The younger man shook his head. "Certainly not!"

"Then it seems like that one at least is feeding itself quite well. What did you name it?"

Jace scowled at the bird, then at Hodge, and then back at the bird again. "I didn't name her anything," he declared. "And I'm not going to. She's not a pet, and she's not supposed to beg food from me. There, go and hunt your own." The last was directed at the falcon, and now he did toss up his arm and launch her into the air, the move well-remembered from the time when Valentine had trained him in handling birds of prey.

They hadn't stopped while talking, and Jace pointed ahead as they turned off the main path onto a smaller one that was almost lost among the grass. "Not far now. You'll see the markings soon enough."

Jace was scanning the area. He had no idea if David was currently in the park, but if he was then chances were that he would show up to greet the newest family member – since it appeared that Allie had already made up her mind about the place Hodge was going to have in their community in future, unless he expressly refused to take it.

There was no magnificent stag trotting over across the meadows, however, and no Gale man brimming with power sitting on the rocks near the center of the family's power that he used so often when he wanted to talk to someone without leaving the park. The Gate was deactivated and silent, as it should be.

For a moment, he considered mentioning Ritual. This was, after all, the very ground on which they had first shared in the Gales' true power, and in a way become an inseparable part of the family. This was where they had first learned that their runes were more than they had known, more even than a means to keep them mortal, as they had come to suspect by the time. Here, they had first experienced the feeling of the runes locking them in place, keeping them from reaching some sort of state the infusion of power of Ritual had driven them towards.

He refrained, in the end. Anything that had to start with a variation of the words: _So when we took part in an orgy half a year ago…_ was not something he needed to say out loud towards the man who had taught him at least half of what he knew of battle technique.


	18. Chapter 18

Hodge hadn't been under any illusions when he had come out here.

It wasn't just that he, who had always been a two handed fighter, whose signature weapon relied on using both hands equally well, at the same time and independently of each other, would have to somehow find a way to work around the loss of his left hand. There was the additional distraction of the location they had chosen.

He understood the merits in the place, especially once he saw the protections they had drawn around it. He understood that the backyard behind the Emporium, nearly always holding multiple cars, wasn't the best space for training. He understood Allie's reluctance to permit weapons in the building, where the children might come across them – though had they been Shadowhunters, her older sons would have started training of their own already.

Still, out here in the park, the feeling of being overwhelmed by the vastness of the world around him – that he had thought conquered in the city already – assaulted him anew, making it hard to focus.

They faced off, Katie staying off to the side and guarding the selection of weapons Jace had brought. As he shrugged out of his jacket, Hodge noticed the addition of a silver bracelet on the younger man's wrist, worked with a decoration in the shape of a raptor's head.

"Electrum?" he asked.

Following his glance, Jace nodded. "Birthday present. My birthday's in January now. Or… always has been, I guess, but I used to celebrate Jonathan Wayland's instead."

"So the bird on it is coincidence?" Hodge wanted to know.

"I guess," Jace returned. "Though with the way the world works once the Gales become involved in it, it may have been foreshadowing. Now. What do you want to start with?"

"Seraph blade," Hodge decided after a moment's thought. It was the first weapon they all trained with. One didn't need two hands to handle a Seraph blade.

Jace picked up his, drawing another scrutiny from the former weapons' master. That sword was new, too.

"May I see that?" Hodge asked.

Nodding, Jace handed over the weapon, presenting it on the fingers of both hands.

The blade was worked intricately, the pommel decorated with a design that linked the Lightwood and Herondale insignia.

"Also from my birthday," Jace said before he could ask. "Grandma Imogen gave me this, and a matching dagger." He drew that, offering it as well.

Unable to hold two weapons at the same time, Hodge returned the sword before he accepted the shorter blade. Made in the same style and with the same skill as the sword, it had a compartment in the hilt that could be filled with poison that would trickle through thin veins worked into the blade. If the material stayed resilient in spite of the addition – which it appeared to do – it was a masterpiece.

"She gave me a kit of … substances to use in it, too," Jace elaborated. "It's come in handy before."

Taking it back, he returned it to its usual place on his belt.

Even as they faced off, Hodge felt that he was off balance. Though his arm was still attached up to the wrist, every movement he made felt wrong. Every instinct in him wanted to use that hand, which had been a weapon in its own right once. Not having it changed everything – from the combinations he could use, to the way he had to move. It was impressive how much that appendage affected the way a swing of his arm felt, the size of the movement he had to execute to balance out an attack or defense – but he couldn't claim that it impressed him in a good way.

Still, even while he fought to regain his equilibrium in battle, he had the time to realize that not only Jace's weapons had changed. There was something different about his fighting style as well, as if he had spent a considerable amount of time learning a new school of combat, or training different muscle groups. He thought he should have been able to identify the origins, but he came up short. He was too busy losing round upon round to his one-time student.

 

_New York_

Catarina Loss felt the disturbance all the way to where she was just taking her break together with a colleague, trickling a bit of energy into the exhausted woman when no one was looking.

Something had cut through the fabric of the world, squeezing entities that were not supposed to be in this dimension into it. The feeling reminded her of the tip of a syringe plunging into tissue and squirting out liquid – except that this injection was of a vile, revolting kind.

Moments later, she almost stumbled under the onslaught of sheer horror, so pure and undiluted that it almost cut through her shields.

Empathy, the ability to pick up emotions from others, was part of her heritage. It had been the source of her desire to help others, her work to lessen pain and suffering; her way of dealing with the constant assault on her extra sense. Over the years, she had learned to shield well, though her chosen line of work had never changed.

Working in hospitals was good practice to make shields second nature, and to keep them tight and secure at all times. There were only few places that were so filled with intense emotions, many of them not good.

As it was, she was certain that her shields had not slipped – and yet she stumbled under the impact.

"Cat?" the other nurse asked, concern clear in her voice. "Are you alright?"

No, she wasn't, and while she made an effort to dampen the flood that was rushing at her, it remained clear enough that there were people nearby who were experiencing a sudden bout of stark terror. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened there. She'd heard enough about the recent demon attacks.

Rubbing a hand over her face and massaging the spot between her brows as if trying to shake a headache, she forced a weak smile. "I think I need some fresh air."

"Want me to come along?" It sounded as if, while willing to go through with the offer, she was hoping for a negative response.

Catarina couldn't blame her. She probably wanted to use the short break she had to grab something to eat and a cup of coffee that wasn't going to go cold before she got around to drinking it. She could follow that thought. Besides, she really didn't want anyone to come along when she left. "Nah," she assured her colleague. "I'll be fine. No need for you to miss your break."

*

Catarina set off at a run the moment she rounded a corner that took her out of sight of the hospital. She didn't know where she was going, but she could tell the direction the fear was coming from. That was where she was headed, although everything inside her screamed at her to go the other way, to make sure that she put as much distance between that place and herself as she could.

She could smell the demons before she could see them, the reek both physical and metaphysical. There was yelling and shouting, drowning out the frightened noises made by the group of mundanes huddled together against the wall of a building.

A group of Shadowhunters had reached the site before her and was trying to contain the situation.

They weren't anyone she was familiar with in person. She thought she might have seen one or two of them around occasionally, but she didn't care enough to linger to figure out if she could put names to their faces.

Hurrying past them, she rushed to the group of victims. Panic and pain held them in place. The demons had come with claws, and they had used them abundantly.

She threw up a shield while still in motion, protecting the group and herself from the worst of the mental onslaught.

While she felt the effect of deliberately shutting out the demons immediately – a step she hadn't dared take before out of fear of losing her beacon – the mundanes either didn't notice or were too far gone within the terror of their own minds to care.

She crouched by them, reaching out a calming hand and extending a soothing tendril of magic. What wounds she could see were deep and painful, but not life-threatening. Treated by mundane means, they would surely leave ugly scars. Luckily for these people, magic could do better.

They _were_ demonic wounds, though, and healing them took effort and focus that other injuries did not. She worked slowly, part of her mind still focused on reinforcing the words she was saying as she tried to capture and hold the group's attention.

Every roar of a demon destroyed what progress she had made immediately, drawing terrified sounds and sobs from her charges.

The third time it happened, she built another shield, shutting out sound and dampening sight outside of the bubble she had cast around them. She was going to have to adjust these people's memories anyway. It didn't matter what they saw right now.

One of them, a young girl with braids, looked up at her with shining eyes. "Are you an angel?" she asked in a small voice full of awe.

Catarina bit her lip hard to keep from snorting at the thought. The idea was…

"No," she replied, her voice serious and earnest, though it was a battle to keep it like that. "I just have a knack for certain things." For a moment, she considered adding: Those are the angels, in reference to the Shadowhunters who were drawing the demons away from them and working hard to banish them from this realm. She refrained, not least because she wasn't certain that they were on the winning side, and the last thing she needed now was for the child to see the angels lose to the demons. That kind of thing tended to leave an impression that was impossible to erase entirely, and the girl surely didn't need unbidden memory fragments lingering and giving her nightmares.

A plan formed in Catarina's mind as she worked. She was going to fix their wounds and put them in a slight trance, then portal them a few blocks away. Their minds would help fill the blank she would have to create in them to account for the time lost. She'd instill them with a strong wish to not come and attend whatever event they had been bound for when the demon group had caught up with them.

She was working on a hand that showed wounds apparently sustained by shielding against the attack. Again, it was lucky that she was here and able to use her magic. There was no way those tears would have healed without impairing function, even with a good surgeon in the picture.

These people didn't look as if they could afford a good surgeon.

The pressure on her shields lessened. The demons were either losing or had been drawn away far enough to be out of reach. Considering how far she'd been able to feel them earlier, the first was more likely, as she noted with a flash of relief.

She was about ready to start on her patient's second hand when there was a demanding rap on the semi-opaque wall she had raised.

Half-turning, she saw one of the Nephilim standing there, bloodied but alive. Her lips were moving, though her words didn't make it through the barrier. She gestured for Catarina to take down the shield.

Frowning at the impatient face, she didn't quite comply, though she did drop the soundproofing and increased transparency.

"Leave them for later!" was the first thing she heard. "We need your help with our people. The demons got two of us."

Catarina glanced over without breaking the working she had on the mundane. She saw two figures on the ground, two others bent over them with silver rods. The demons weren't anywhere to be seen.

The small movement to check on the situation there was enough to cause the fear emanating from her mundane charges to spike again, however. She had come to help them in their moment of need, and, not yet in a place where they were capable of reasonable thought after being exposed so closely to the influence of that many demons, the thought of losing that protection was enough to almost undo her calming spell.

"I'll make you a portal so you can take them to your institute," she offered. "I can't leave these people right now."

The Shadowhunter scowled at the group. "None of those injuries are life-threatening. Theirs are." She pointed behind her.

"That why I offered you a portal," the warlock said. "You have a good infirmary that can take care of them. Someone needs to deal with these people's memories, too, and I can do that – you can't, and bringing in another warlock is needlessly delaying things. The larger the wipe, the riskier."

She struck a reasonable tone and hoped that it would do the trick.

It didn't. Expecting that the more transparent shield was also more permeable, the Shadowhunter stepped forward, stretching out a hand that would have closed around Catarina's upper arm if it hadn't hit the barrier well before that.

Catarina didn't look back to see if the impact had done any damage. She stayed focused on her work. "Tell me when you're ready to portal," she said evenly. "I can't help you right now."

Her duty was with the weakest of those involved, and by definition, those were the mundanes right now. The Shadowhunters, even if they were critically injured, had gone into it knowing what they were in for. The people before her had been taken by surprise, overwhelmed and surprised by a thing to the existence of which they should have stayed blissfully ignorant.

She wasn't going to abandon them.

 

_Calgary_

"Are you sure it's me you want along for this?" Chris asked as he and Magnus approached their destination.

The sun was about to set over Calgary, and they were following the instructions the GPS on the warlock's phone provided, stopping every once in a while to check the area for magic signatures or any other indications that they were not the only non-mundanes in the street.

"Very sure," Magnus returned. "Saying I wouldn't prefer it if Alexander was also here with us would be a lie you wouldn't believe anyway, so I'm not going to – but out of everyone who can be in town tonight without causing issues, you're my first choice. Which is why I asked you first."

Chris slowed his steps as he pondered that. "Why?"

When Magnus didn't answer immediately, he continued: "It can't be the demon powers because I'm not trained enough for that to be any good for you. I'm no better than any other Shadowhunter in town. My arm's better than it was, but it's still a weakness. The Gales would give you a much better edge with their charms… so: why?"

"You're underestimating yourself," Magnus informed him. "You're a superb hand with a sword. Alexander, Isabelle and Jace all said you're as good as they are, so if I get to choose whose sword has my back, that'll be it. Alexander would never forgive me if I got myself into trouble by bad contingency planning."

He checked the screen of his phone to see where they had to turn. "And you _can_ shield, so I won't have to keep up your shields in addition to my own. Apart from that, this concerns you. You're the one, other than me, who they tried to 'convince' before." His hands sketched quotation marks into the air at the word.

"The Gales…" Chris began.

"The Gales prefer not to meddle with downworlder issues," Magnus reminded him. "They would have come if I'd asked, but it's not right to make them. If you're that uncertain that you should be here, why did you agree?"

The younger man thought about it for a long moment. "Because you asked," he said eventually. "And because I wouldn't be able to face Alec if anything happened to you and I declined. And…" one corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "I guess I may not mind a little excitement. And I want to know what they're up to, too." The last was accompanied by a sigh.

The building named on the note Magnus had received was an abandoned warehouse, boarded up and secured. At least that was what the glamor on it suggested. Beneath, while not in the best of repair, it was at least marginally less crumbling.

It appeared that they were alone, with neither warlock nor mundane in the vicinity. There was plenty of time left before the indicated hour, so that was hardly surprising.

Carefully probing the magic on the building, Magnus determined that there were no wards that would alert anyone when breached. As far as he could tell, the building was, indeed, abandoned, the spells on it not renewed in months, if not years, and the person who had cast them either departed or deceased.

They slipped inside as noiselessly as they could. Boxes and crates were stacked there, some bulging and others apparently empty. With a few gestures, Magnus indicated a number of stacks close to one wall. There was some narrow space there between them that could serve to conceal them – especially if he followed up with a glamor.

At Chris' nod, they squeezed between the stacks, careful not to disturb anything or cause any of the crates to topple over.

Building the glamor wasn't hard. Magnus fixed his spell in place, making sure that they would not be easily spotted, then laid a Gale 'look elsewhere' charm on top of it. Hopefully, that'd keep anyone probing for strange magic from finding their hiding spot as well.

Next, he turned towards the crates. Without touching them, he sent out a tendril of his magic, probing to see what he would find.

The results brought a grimace to his face. Some of those crates were filled with perfectly mundane things, as if someone's household had been packed up and stored. Others were brimming with magic, sealed away under wards and traps. Then he touched a third kind, and he physically recoiled from the contact.

"Magnus?" Chris whispered, concern clear in his voice. "What's wrong?"

Magnus shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. "Nothing," he said. "Just – some of these boxes? They contain dead things."

"Dead things?" The Shadowhunter was frowning and looking around, staring at the containers as if he could see through them if he tried hard enough.

"Like body parts," Magnus elaborated. "Someone stashed a few corpses here and laid spells on them to keep them from going bad. I think we'd do good to be prepared."

With a nod, Chris put his crossbow in front of himself and drew his sword. He didn't like what he'd just heard, but he wasn't going to suggest they leave now. "I'm as ready as I'll be," he announced.

"If anything happens," Magnus informed him, pointing, "I'll put a portal there. I'm setting up the basics now so I'll just have to activate it. If it goes up, you go through. Don't hesitate. Don't play the hero. I'll be right behind you."

"Right." Knowing Magnus was planning a way out for them was a relief. Chris didn't think he had any interest in being a hero anyway if it meant going up alone against someone who thought moving crates were the right place to keep a corpse – or several.

 

_New York_

Catarina was walking back towards her home. She had texted her colleague earlier, informing her she'd felt too sick to return to her shift. She'd take care of the consequences of that the next morning. A little magic went a long way, and she was still certain that she hadn't had any other choice than to take care of the five mundanes, fixing their wounds, fixing their clothes, and then taking them to a location that wouldn't trigger memories immediately before carefully going through their minds, one by one, wiping away what shouldn't be there and letting them fill it up with only suggestions from her.

The five were a family, so making sure that their memories were consistent was vital. That made the progress slow, as did her efforts to not cause any damage. She didn't want to harm their minds. She wanted them to have no recollection of their recent adventure, but without the experience marking them forever.

The false memories planted in place of the real ones had to hold up to her targets' scrutinies, even if they were questioned by others who would want to know where they had been. The less doubt they had that what they remembered was what had actually happened, the longer it would take for the memories to filter back in. By then, they would hopefully discard them as nightmares and not bother to compare notes.

It had taken her the better part of three hours before she had released the group.

Now, she was more than ready for a long, hot shower and a good meal. Work like what she had just done did cost a lot of energy. She could already feel the waist of her trousers being looser than it had been that morning.

She hadn't gone far when a team of four Nephilim stepped out of the shadows and into her way.

Without turning, she could tell from the sounds that a similar line had moved in behind her.

"What do you want?" she asked wearily. She could about imagine that, of course. They were going to demand that she justify her earlier actions.

The Shadowhunters had eventually taken her offer of a portal, though only because it had been clear that she wasn't going to relent, and they hadn't been able to get through her shield to force her.

One of the Nephilim stepped forward, blade in his hand. "Catarina Loss?" he asked.

She nodded. It was a stupid question. He'd clearly come here to accost her. He knew who she was.

At a jerk of his head, two of his companions moved in, grabbing her arms by the wrists and close to the elbow and holding them.

"By the order of the New York Institute, you are under arrest," the man intoned. He sounded a little bored.

Out of reflex, she jerked, trying to free her hands. The vise-like grips on her tightened even more. There was no way she could get out of their hold now.

"On what charges?" she asked, fixing the Shadowhunter with what she hoped was a level gaze.

"Refusing aid to the Nephilim and risking their lives." Now there was venom in his tone. He turned to his people again. "Alright. Bring her."

 

_Calgary_

Louisa Rock arrived barely a minute before the given time, entering the room side by side with a man who looked unusually old for a warlock. Maybe, Magnus thought, he liked gray hair and glamored himself accordingly.

"How long do we have?" he said, his eyes darting towards the door the moment they stopped their progress.

"I'd say about twenty minutes," Louisa returned. "That way, everyone should be able to get back to where they're supposed to be before we're noticed missing."

Another figure slipped into the room to join them, then a fourth. They nodded to each other and waited, though all of them were clearly nervous.

"Do you think he'll come?" one of the newcomers asked.

"Bane?" Louisa returned. "I don't know. He claimed he wanted to stay out of warlock business."

Her companion gave a snorting laugh. "Sure. Like he could."

"He certainly took in Samuel quickly enough," the first speaker pointed out. "If we'd known he was willing to go against—" She broke off at a motion from Louisa, just as three more warlocks arrived to join them.

"We wouldn't have invited him anyway," Louisa said. "He's too inexperienced, too weak in his power yet. Bane can afford to protect him because he's crazy powerful – you should have seen him throw down a web over Carlotta as if it was no big deal at all – and that was while she had a lock on the ley lines."

"How was he able to do magic at all if she'd locked the lines?" the visually youngest member of the group asked.

Louisa shrugged. "The Gale man claimed he didn't need the ley lines to do magic. Maybe he taught that trick to Bane? I can only tell you that it worked. If we ever want to be free of her, he's the one we need to convince to help us."

"He's with one of the Nephilim," the grey-haired man said slowly. "If we give him any kind of position here, we'll be half under their rule. And half under the Gales'."

"And I say that would still be better than what we have now." That voice was rough, sounding as if it had been damaged by something. It belonged to a warlock in loose green clothing that barely concealed the fact that the body beneath had angles that wouldn't have boded well in an ordinary human.

Mutters of agreement and nods went around the loose circle they formed.

"When did you tell him to come?" one of the women wanted to know.

"The same time I gave you," Louisa said. Once again, she stopped the reaction, which was not pleased. "I understand the issues with involving him. But look at us. We meet in this place because it's the last place she'd expect us to come to for any secret plotting. We barely dare talk to each other outside of these meetings, and we know if she catches any one of us, we'll all suffer for it."

When there was no immediate reaction, she continued: "I'm the one most likely to be found out. I slip her the draft that keeps her asleep so we _can_ meet in the first place. I need to pass on control of our group to someone who has more … experience and more power than I have. Forgive me, but I can't go on for long, knowing that some day I'll be forced to betray you all."

"What if he's not coming today?"

Louisa shrugged. "I'll see if I can get a hold of him some other way. Or volunteer to have another go at the park and throw myself at the mercy of the Gale. Maybe I'll get a chance to talk to him then."

"The Gale," the warlock in green said. "Is he … what they say?"

"He's absolutely terrifying," Louisa told him. "I'm half inclined to believe the rumors that he's a minor god in his own right. He is… he feels as if he could destroy the city with a thought."

The grey-haired warlock clapped his hands. "Enough talk of Gales and Magnus Bane. If he's not coming, we can't waste the time we have. Has anyone made any progress?"

*

The group of warlocks had continued a quick exchange that Magnus hadn't been able to follow. They clearly knew what the others were talking about, but he was missing the details he would have needed to understand their discussion.

One thing, however, was clear: this group was not happy with Carlotta Cross. In fact, they seemed to be terrified of her, and yet unable to simply replace her with another High Warlock. He wondered what Samuel hadn't told him.

Or had he simply been so young, and spent so little time among the warlock community of Calgary that he hadn't been aware of the issue? He'd have to make sure of that when he got home in any case.

He'd shared a glance with Chris, and they had come to the mute agreement not to drop the glamor and show themselves. They were two, and clearly outnumbered by the group at the center of the room. Though he was flattered by Louisa's judgment of his power, he thought that seven was a bit too much to try and tackle on his own with only a half-trained student at his back.

The warlocks kept glancing at watches and phones, as if afraid they might miss the moment they had to depart.

When it came, the little gathering broke up quickly, with a string of muttered reassurances and promises to watch out for each other as well as they could.

Eventually, Louisa Rock remained alone, standing where she had been all this time.

"You can come out now," she said loudly, not looking anywhere specific.

Magnus glanced at Chris with raised eyebrows, then nodded at the crossbow.

His companion understood. With his aim securely on the other warlock, he waited as Magnus stepped out of his protection.

"How did you know I was there?" he asked.

By the way she startled, barely suppressing a yelp as she spun, she hadn't known. He mentally commended her on her strategy.

"I didn't," she admitted, a hand at the base of her throat as if trying to physically calm the vein that was pulsing there. "I just—" Her shoulders slumped. "Why did you hide?"

"Because I don’t overestimate my powers to the point where I would walk into an unknown location where there would be an unknown number of unknown warlocks waiting for me," Magnus said practically. "And while I might have risked two or three, that group was too large to do anything."

The look on her face seemed disbelieving. Was she truly unable to imagine that he didn't see himself as all-powerful?

"From what I gathered, you need to be back soon," Magnus noted. "How about you give me a quick rundown of what's going on here?"

Louisa sighed, closed her eyes briefly, and gave a sharp nod. "Carlotta Cross is not really a warlock," she said after another moment. "I'm not even sure what she is. Some sort of … entity. She showed up, she challenged the previous High Warlock and won. The day after her inauguration party, we woke up somehow… tied to her. She uses our magic, and she uses our life force. It drains us."

So maybe the greying warlock hadn't been a glamor. "The man who came in with you?" he asked.

"Stu was punished for questioning her orders," Louisa said. "He has barely any magic left, and his body is … deteriorating. If she taps him again, he'll surely die."

"What about Samuel?" Magnus asked. "He didn't mention anything of the kind."

"He's very young," Luisa replied, glancing at the door. "Can we walk while we talk?"

Magnus' lips thinned briefly before he came to a decision. "Sure. Chris?"

The young man stepped out of the glamor without hesitation, his crossbow still fixed on Louisa. He made no move to lower it.

"I see," the woman said. Her tone and expression did not betray her thoughts. She merely moved towards the door in slow, measured steps, letting Magnus and Chris follow.

"Samuel?" Magnus prompted.

"She doesn’t bother with someone as young as he," Louisa informed him. "I mean, she does in that she gave him orders and forbade people from helping him when he needed help – she likes to get you into desperate situations and then appear as your savior so you're in her debt." She gave a small laugh. "She didn't expect him to just go to you instead."

Magnus' lips twitched into a small smirk. "She may experience a few things that she doesn't expect." His expression turned somber. "There was a man. Maurice Shade. He came to my home and was caught in my wards. I refused his demands. Did he suffer for it?"

Louisa swayed her head slightly. "A bit, probably. I stay away from him. He's … not pleasant. She likes him well enough, so I'd be surprised if she drained him or killed him."

Speaking of killing…

"Are you aware of what's in the boxes in that warehouse?"

He knew the answer by her sudden blanching before she nodded.

"Unless it's relevant for the issue at hand," Magnus said, "we'll talk about that later. What do you give her to keep her from noticing you're out of the house?"

"A powder I mix with her evening tea," Louisa said. "It sends her into a deep sleep. It only works for about an hour, though, and there's no telling how soon she'll wake after that, so I need to be back in time. Will you help us?"

Magnus wanted to give her a positive answer. He wanted to tell her that it'd be alright, that he – and his friends – would take care of the matter. Realistically speaking, however, he couldn't. He needed to learn more about the kind of creature Carlotta Cross was. He needed to talk to Allie, and to David, and not least to Alec.

"'I'll see what I can do," he said instead. "It may take a little while before we've figured out a viable way to proceed. No one will be helped if I barge in and she kills you all for it."

"Can't you – that net you used when you came to her place? It kept her from doing anything. She couldn't even tap into my magic, and I promise you, she tried."

"Briefly, yes," Magnus confirmed. "But it doesn’t hold for long. What you just told me – that sounded like it would need a more permanent solution." He gave her arm a reassuring pat. "Give me a short while to figure something out. Until then, stay as safe as you can, and stay alive."


	19. Chapter 19

April 25th

_New York_

Alec glanced at his phone again, hoping for another message from Magnus. They had talked last night, his boyfriend imparting the news from the meeting he had watched and the subsequent talk with Louisa Rock. Doubtlessly, something needed to be done about the situation.

Just as doubtlessly, they couldn't do anything about it right now, and Magnus was presently talking to Allie and the Aunties to find out what they knew or could determine concerning the issue.

Their group, for a change, wasn't going to spend the afternoon in Calgary – or at least not all of the afternoon.

Two messages had gone out to London from them, requesting information on the series of demon attacks from twenty years ago.

The one that had taken the official channel had remained unanswered so far.

The second one, a private message sent directly to George Winterstorm, who had been assigned to take care of them when they had visited the London Institute recently, had been more successful.

Unwilling to trust that he'd be able to spot the information they needed, even if they gave him as much information as they could with the short time they had, and equally unwilling to risk having the file he had retrieved go through other hands, they had decided to take a risk of a different kind instead.

Since Clary was still unable to scout ahead when leaving through a picture, they had had to ask Geordi to check the hallway where a certain large painting was hung in the London Institute. Back when they had visited, Clary had studied it in detail – officially due to her interest in art, but in fact in order to give them a way into the institute if they needed one. They were under no illusions that requesting a portal wouldn't give them any kind of result within the timeframe they had.

 

_London_

They stepped out of the painting and into an empty corridor.

A mostly empty corridor, that was. Geordie stood off to the side, watching them with interest as they landed lightly on the tiled floor.

"That’s a neat trick," he noted as soon as they turned to look at him. "Can you teach me?"

"Maybe, if you have a Fairchild in your ancestry," Izzy told him. "It's one of those extra knacks like the Herondales seeing ghosts…"

"Must be handy on mission," Geordie mused.

Alec gave him a shrug. "Not as much as you'd think… it works by certain rules."

"Like what?"

"Like that I need to know the paintings I come out of quite well," Clary elaborated.

"Ah." He paused briefly. "Like you can only portal to places where you've been before?"

They confirmed with a nod.

"The file," Alec reminded him. "I'm sorry to rush this, but we don't have a huge amount of time, and this trip isn't exactly sanctioned."

"I can't let you take it home with you," their friend said. "It might be noticed if it's missing. There's an official request to have a copy sent to New York, too, and whenever they get around to dealing with that…"

Alec didn't resist the urge to roll his eyes. "That is _our_ request, and I'd just love to know what's taking so long about it. We're having a bit of a problem in New York right now, you know…"

The other man's expression was sympathetic. "I saw it lost its priority marker somewhere along the way. If I was inclined to be paranoid, I'd claim it happened when that weird man came visiting." He was holding up a small folder, but not releasing it yet.

As the personal assistant of the Head of the London Institute, Geordie not only had access to things other Shadowhunters assigned to the same location might not have, but also kept tabs on the old woman's meetings and appointments.

"Let's be paranoid," Alec said, "the weird man wasn't by any chance a blond guy covered in _enkeli_?" He gestured at the file. "We'll just go through it, photograph the pages and be gone again. We're not going to steal it."

"You know him." Geordie didn't seem to have quite decided if he wanted to be surprised about that or not. He did hand over the file now, however.

Since there was no furniture around that they could use in the section of the corridor that wasn't covered by the cameras, Izzy and Jace knelt on the floor. He turned pages while she took pictures of each. Alec gave Geordie a nod. "My best guess would have been that or our father… but you wouldn't have called him weird."

"Who is he?"

"Not sure you want to know," Alec returned. "And if I told you, you probably wouldn't believe it. And he's going to deny it, too, if you ask him. Then he'd probably kill you." He wasn't sure that saying the last would come across as anything but a joke, but they had already lost one friend to Valentine, in spite of their warnings to stay away from the man.

Geordie was moving his head from side to side, considering. "You know… I'm inclined to believe that. He made me feel… hunted, for lack of a better word."

"We've got a problem," Izzy announced from where she was kneeling.

Clary went to look over her shoulder at what she was reading. Alec merely looked down at them. "What is it?"

"Did you know Valentine was assigned to this place back then?" Izzy asked.

Alec frowned, thinking hard. "I might have heard something at some point," he admitted. "But… nothing I can put my finger on."

"Valentine Morgenstern who just almost destroyed everything we do?" Geordie inquired. "I… yeah, I knew that. It was before the Uprising."

"Valentine Morgenstern who is a lot more complicated than that," Jace said, fixing the local Shadowhunter with an intense look. "Who, believe it or not, is currently residing in a body marked by a ridiculous number of enkeli runes after his old one died." He turned his eyes on Alec. "And who apparently was involved in the teams investigating the series of demon attacks here in London back then."

"What?" Now Alec wanted to join his friends and look at the file himself. Knowing that they would only get into each other's way if they all tried to crowd around the small folder, he refrained.

Izzy indicated for Jace to keep turning pages as she spoke. "I obviously didn't linger to read. I just saw him in the list of team members for one of the missions."

Jace pointed as he turned another page. "And here he's taking over the team leader's position. And…" He lifted the page, checking if there was anything left below it. "Two days later the attacks ended."

"You don't think he caused the attacks?" Geordie asked. "That seems very far-fetched."

"No," Alec confirmed. "And until we know more we won't assume anything – officially. But on a strictly personal level? I would bet that he did something – not necessarily to start them, but to end them. And since the attacks in New York started before we came back, we can probably safely assume they weren't started to get at us. But we know that the one person we can assume knows how to end them won't tell us."

Jace looked up at him again. "Like we'd ask him?"

"Probably not," his _parabatai_ admitted. "But apparently he's not telling Aldertree either. I might drop a hint or two the next time I talk to him."

"He must have some vested interest in the attacks continuing," Izzy said. She took the folder from Jace, snapped it shut and rose to hand it back to Geordie. "Thank you. We appreciate your help." She turned to her brother again. "Otherwise, he should have volunteered some information by now. Whatever else is going on, it can't be in his best interest to keep losing Nephilim on those missions."

"He was going to unleash a Demon general on the world in order to keep our people together and not even think about questioning what we're doing," Jace threw in. "I'd think the attacks in New York would be right down his alley."

"Demon general?" Geordie asked. "Long story?"

They nodded.

"Then tell me another time – but do tell me sometime. Here's another thought: maybe he did share, and whatever he did back then didn't work this time."

 

_New York_

They returned to the mundane coffee shop to study the pictures they had taken of the files. While the cameras in the institute surely wouldn't have caught the details of what they were reading, and looking at a smartphone screen would stand out a lot less than reading an unknown file, the risk of being overheard remained.

What Izzy and Jace had seen in passing turned out to be accurate: The younger Valentine Morgenstern – as well as Jocelyn Fairchild – had been assigned to the main team in charge of handling the string of assaults.

After the team's leader was injured in one of those attacks, Valentine had been assigned to that position. He had led the three last response missions. Then, as suddenly as they had begun, the attacks had ended.

They wrote down the names of the other team members. They'd see how many of them they could contact and question. Alec didn't feel very confident as he looked at the list.

Several of those were people he knew were dead. His family had had ties to the London Institute for a long time, and several of the families who traditionally had members assigned there had counted among their family's friends. Whether that was still the case after their parents' divorce remained to be seen.

"Do you want to start contacting the list right away when we're back?" Jace asked when they were making their way home to the institute, glamored but alert.

"I think that is a job that should go to Ian and Francesco," his _parabatai_ decided. "We're not the most popular people around right now, so I don't want any information kept from us just because of who's asking. And those two have been in the game for longer than we and will have more contacts of their own they can use at need."

"Right," Izzy agreed. "But what if—" She broke off, stopping in her tracks and pointing ahead. "The institute just went out!"

The institute, of course, hadn't – but the lights that had lit up the old church for those able to see through the glamor of the ruin, previously just coming into view ahead of them, certainly had.

As if on a silent command, all four of them started to run.

The angelic power core that supplied the institute with the Shadowhunter equivalent of electricity wasn't supposed to just break down and fail. Turning it off was a tricky thing, as Alec had found out once before. The head of the institute had a control unit, of course, but why would Aldertree want to shut off power?

Unbidden, a number of scenarios wormed their way into Alec's mind. A demon attack right in the institute, overwhelming the angelic essence; an attempt at recharging the soul sword's destructive powers, cut short by removal of the power it was fueled with; sabotage…

The front door swung open at their touch. The runes applied to permit entrance to any Nephilim who came calling didn't need a power supply.

Inside, the building was dim, what little light came in through the windows barely enough to make out details.

They surreptitiously sketched NightVision charms on their eyelids. They wouldn't stand out. Everyone inside surely had their Nyx runes activated.

"What happened?" Alec asked, approaching the first person he could find.

"No idea," came the reply, promptly and without misgivings. Apparently, the more pressing matter of the power outage overrode the current general attitude towards their group. "Someone must have pulled the manual override for the core and turned it off."

"How did they get to it?" The manual override was right there with the core. Anyone accessing it had to have entered a room that was locked and guarded. He didn't bother to ask if they knew who the perpetrator was. The camera feed wouldn't be accessible without power, and he wasn't going to rely on it that there would be any recording afterwards either.

The man he had stopped shrugged. "Farseer is dead. The other two who were on watch at the door are missing."

Alec stepped back without asking any further questions. That was more information than he'd been hoping for. The lights had, after all, only gone out minutes ago.

They turned, scanning the hallway. As far as they could tell, there was no demonic presence, no sign of an intruder that they could spot. Of course, now that the power was out, an intruder wouldn't trigger any alarms anymore…

"Where to?" Jace asked

Coming to a decision quickly, Alec pointed. "Power room." It was their best chance to find out more, and his magic vision might still turn up information the others couldn't see.

They made their way to their new destination quickly, weaving through people going the other direction. Someone hissed at them to not bother, that they'd only be in the way if they, too, went and added to the crowd there.

Ignoring that, though it normally would have been good advice, they continued.

Though he kept looking around, Alec couldn't spot any traces of power that weren’t supposed to be there. Disappointing as that was, it also was reassuring in a way. One less thing to worry about…

Two medics were just preparing to take away the body of Edmund Farseer when they arrived. Their task wasn't made any easier by the people who stood crowded around the doorway.

From what a glance at the corpse told them, he had been stabbed with blades. His own was still in its sheath, unused. He must have been surprised.

Two of Aldertree's bodyguards were guarding the entrance, keeping anyone else from pushing inside. The angelic power core, usually radiating a bright, pure light, lay in its socket dark and dull. A panel had been removed from the back wall. They spotted Aldertree there, inspecting the content of the niche it had exposed together with two from the tech staff.

"Orders?" Alec asked before anyone could tell them to get lost.

He had spoken a little louder than he had to in order to be heard over the din around him. It was enough to make Aldertree turn around and gesture for them to be let through.

The guard did so, his expression not relaxing in the least.

"They jammed the lever," Aldertree informed them without prompting. "Getting it loose will take a while. I fear a lot of these mechanisms haven't been kept in as good repair as they should have been. If we apply too much force, we may break the entire thing, and then it'll take forever to fix."

"Is everyone accounted for?" Alec asked as his three friends automatically went into formation around him. Realizing that the question could be construed as him overstepping his boundaries and acting as if he, and not Aldertree, was in charge of the institute and the situation, he added: "Sir. If they killed Farseer, they may have harmed others, too."

"We don't know yet," Aldertree admitted. "We can't exactly call everyone together while the speakers aren't working. We don't even have phone reception because the converter for the mundane networks isn't working. That is, unless you want to comb the institute and tell everyone to meet up in the mess hall."

Izzy gave a sharp nod. "We can do that," she said, turning on her heel before the others could respond.

"You heard the man!" Jace called as they ducked through between the guards by the door again. "Assemble in the mess hall. Tell anyone you meet on the way, too. We need to know if anyone else is unaccounted for!"

*

Having grown up in the institute certainly was an advantage if one was going to systematically comb it for people. Unwilling to split up since they didn't know how many attackers there had been and where they had gone, the four turned down a corridor, knocking on every door and opening those that didn't lead to private quarters.

They stopped when they reached the stairs.

"Down?" Clary asked.

The others hesitated for a moment.

"I don't think there's anyone in the cells right now," Alec decided eventually. "But let's check anyway."

The NightVision wasn't enough for them to see by anymore as they descended into the basement rooms with the institute's holding cells. There simply wasn't an external light source they could use to work with.

Mentally thanking Izzy for the idea of equipping the bracelets Magnus had given them with small witchlight stones, they pulled out the tiny fragments.

The world around them brightened up considerably at once.

As they had expected, there were no other Shadowhunters down here. What they hadn't expected, however, was that one of the cells was occupied.

The identity of the prisoner came as even more of a surprise.

"Catarina!" Clary exclaimed as she rushed forward, closely followed by the others. "What are you doing down here?"

The warlock looked up, squinting through the darkness, unable to make out anything other than the dots of light produced by their stones.

"It's us." Izzy added. "Alec, Jace, Clary and I. I swear, we didn't know you were here!"

She didn't have to ask why Catarina hadn't simply portalled out when the power had gone out. Someone had taken precautions. She was shackled hand and foot, unable to cast a spell and unable to run.

Without waiting for her answer, Alec reached out to draw a charm on the cuffs that held her. He didn't need to hear her explanation of how she had ended up here to be certain that she didn't deserve to be in a cell.

"There was a demon attack … yesterday, I think," she said, rubbing her wrists. "A group of mundanes were injured. I insisted that they needed to be taken care of first, and offered the Shadowhunters a portal back to the institute so they could treat their wounded. They didn't like that."

Of course they hadn't, though by all rights, that was precisely what they should have insisted on. They were sworn to protect the mundanes after all.

"What are the charges?" Jace asked. He had drawn his blade and was guarding.

"Right now, refusing aid," Catarina informed him. "They said they would change it to murder if one of the wounded didn't pull through."

That wasn't good. "They'll find something else they can make up if they all do," Alec pointed out. "You need to get out of here. Out of New York, preferably, or they'll just take you back. Can you portal?"

Even to their NightVision sight, it was clear that Catarina hated the idea of leaving the city, leaving her job, leaving the people who depended on her. She could see the wisdom in his words, though. Still, she shook her head. "Too exhausted," she told him. "They didn't let me sleep since they brought me in."

Alec could see his own anger reflected on the others' faces. "Clary, what's the closest picture?"

"We can take the mural at the top of the stairs," the red-head suggested.

_Calgary_

They stepped out in Allie's living room, immediately greeted by assorted family.

Before they could explain the situation, Allie herded them to the dinner table, set already to accommodate the extra guests.

"We need to get back to New York!" Alec protested. "We're actually having a bit of a situation there!"

"Have your situation later," Allie told him, her voice brooking no argument. "Charlie can help with that."

Alec frowned at her. "You know we don't like to impose on Charlie when we don't have to."

"You do have to," Charlie's voice came from the corridor that led to the added rooms. "Allie has been nervous about your absence all day, to the point where we've considered calling you."

"Have not!" Allie shot at her cousin.

Charlie laughed. "Oh yes, Allie-Cat, you have. And we all know that if you feel that strongly about someone being here, there's usually a good reason for it and they will be needed."

An uncharacteristically dark look came across Allie's features. "You never think that way when I want you to come back from one of your trips," she accused.

"I always do come back," Charlie said calmly.

There was no response to that, but they did settle around the table.

It didn't take more than a few minutes before Allie's phone buzzed. The message brought a smile to her face. "You're welcome to take a room or a suite in the manor house for the time being," she announced, looking at Catarina. "Lucy, Rayne and Roland are happy to have you as their guest for however long you want to stay. I bet Madzie will be happy to have you close again, too."

Catarina blinked, speechless at the efficient and matter-of-course manner in which Allie handled the situation. She hadn't even asked _why_ the four had brought her along.

"You can borrow a change of clothes from me when you've eaten," the Gales' female anchor continued. "You'll probably want to change out of those things."

"I'd appreciate it," the warlock admitted. She was still wearing her hospital clothes, but if Allie had assumed that hunger and thirst had been the more pressing needs for her right now, she had been perfectly right.

The pies on the table, she noticed, not only took care of her complaining stomach, but also wiped away her fatigue.

"You'll have to be careful here for the moment," Graham warned, and it took Catarina a moment to realize that that had been directed at her.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"The local warlocks are having a bit of an issue," Alec informed her in Graham's place. "We've only known for about a day and Magnus is on it, but you don't want to get caught in it while we're not sure what we're dealing with yet." He looked at Allie. "Or are we sure what we're dealing with by now?"

Allie shook her head. "Our best guess is an ogre, but we're not certain yet."

"An ogre?" Izzy asked, leaning forward to listen. "Do they do that kind of thing?"

"They do come in some shape-changing varieties." Auntie Gwen had just come in and slid into the conversation as if she'd been at the table with them all along. "They absorb a person and take on that person's form and, to a degree, gain their memories and skills. You can assume that's where the man-eating myth comes from."

"What about this … possibly ogre?" Catarina wanted to know.

Reminded of Magnus, Alec had pulled out his phone. If they were in Calgary anyway, he could just as well text his boyfriend and ask him to come over. He stopped typing to answer. "Seems she took the shape of a warlock, grabbed the High Warlock's position and is now feeding on the local warlocks that she has under her control. She's not pleased that Magnus wouldn't join her ranks."

Catarina snorted. "Of course she wouldn't be! So I stay away from the local warlocks except for Magnus. That should work for a short time, at least, and – don't get me wrong, but I really hope I'll be able to return to New York." The last was directed at Allie. "I have a job there. People need me."

"Calgary has hospitals," Allie reminded her. "Some of them could use a skilled nurse. Or a doctor. I'd recommend being a doctor this time. You have the skill."

"I do have the skill," Catarina admitted. "But nurses stand out less. If a patient gets miraculously better, doctors will be at the center of attention. Nurses usually aren't."

That was impossible to argue with, and Allie nodded.

There was a buzz as Alec's phone almost leapt off the table with an incoming message. He grabbed for it, snapping it open to read.

"Magnus needs us," he announced, already pushing back his chair and standing. "The situation has changed." He looked at Allie, who shook her head.

"I don't feel any disturbance." By the sound of her voice, she found that fact a personal insult.

Alec had barely sent off his return text, informing Magnus that they were, in fact, in Calgary already and on their way to their home, when a portal opened in a corner of the room and the sparkling warlock came through.

*

"I received this not ten minutes ago," Magnus announced, placing a square of what looked like paper on the table. They recognized the object as one of the warlock mind photographs Magnus also sometimes handed out. It showed a young woman in some sort of uniform, apparently asleep.

On the picture, someone had scribbled: "I swapped the cups".

"She's alive and not in distress," Allie said. "I've had an eye on her since you told us about all that, and I'd know… It must have sent her to sleep so fast she didn't even have the time to be scared."

"While that means that things could be worse than they are," Magnus said, "the situation still needs to be handled." Wiping his hands on the thighs of his trousers, he turned to Alec and took a deep breath. "In the name of the Warlock community of Calgary, I'm asking– not as my boyfriend but as the head of the Calgary Nephilim – for your support in this matter."

"You have it," Alec said. "And you didn’t need to ask."

Magnus' mouth twitched. "I know I didn't, but since you were going to help anyway, we may as well do it in a way that'll go towards lessening the resistance to a Shadowhunter base in town."

Alec was texting again, this time to Aline. "Clary," he said, "take us home so we can gear up."

That 'home' was their house by the park went without saying. They were about to step into the large painting with Clary, when Charlie spoke. "Unless you send us another meeting place, we'll join you by the park in ten minutes."

"We?" Alec looked surprised. "But the Gales don't interfere with non-family business."

"We're wild powers," Jack told him, grinning. "Which means that you have my sword."

"And my guitar," Charlie added, not bothering to point out that Jack did not, in fact, own a sword. "Now get going."

 

*

They had all changed into combat gear, the four wearing the leather armor Imogen Herondale had given them, while Aline, Helen, Sebastian and Chris were dressed more casually, but still practically. Each of them had their favorite weapons on their bodies, along with a few backups.

"I thought we were going to collect Charlie and Jack," Aline said as they approached the meeting place.

Alec couldn't help but stare. "So did I…"

Jack and Charlie were there as promised. With them, however, stood Charlie's twin sisters Carrie and Ashley, who had proclaimed themselves vampire and demon hunters years before they had met the four Nephilim and Magnus. Catarina, who had swapped her hospital scrubs for jeans and a sweater from Allie's wardrobe, didn't come as a huge surprise either.

No one, however, had expected the rest of the assembly: Melissa and Elessar, complete with the Seelie Knight's bodyguard, Samuel, half-hiding behind Cameron Gale, and finally Katie and the man they had never thought to see in an active mission.

"You're sure about this?" Alec asked.

Hodge moved his head in the suggestion of a shake. "Not at all. And Jace knows I fail at fighting right now. But if you need someone for an observation post or something… I'm in."

Alec inclined his head in an acknowledgement. "Samuel, give Jack all the information you have about where the other warlocks live or can usually be found. We'll try to get as many of them shielded from her influence as we can."

Chris gave him a surprised look. "Can we do that?"

"I think we can." It was Magnus who answered. "She wasn’t able to tap into Louisa's magic when I had my net on her. I think that implies that the way she saps off magic and life force isn't some kind of innate skill she has, but works like magic. So, we should be able to block her with the right wards. We're not going to risk that, though."

"We'll stash them in the Wood," Alec elaborated. "That'll keep them out of her influence.

"I have a better idea." Jack either hadn't heard that one didn't challenge the commanding officer's statements before the assembled team, or he didn't care. Luckily, neither did Alec.

"Out with it then!" he said.

Jack grinned. "If you put them in the Wood, Charlie needs to stay there and keep an eye on them, or time may just run off with them. The backyard of the Emporium is a pocket universe. It should work just as well for cutting her tie with them."

"What will Allie say to that?" Alec inquired. He hadn't liked the idea of having one of his best assets busy babysitting their charges.

"Whose idea do you think this was?"

"Right." Alec clapped his hands once. "The backyard it is." He was thinking quickly, trying to fit the people he had at his disposal into their plans. Charlie and her sisters were definitely going to come with them. That part was easy.

"Samuel, Cameron, Helen – you fly with Jack," he decided. Samuel could direct the dragon and would be someone the warlocks knew, though they didn't think much of him given his age. Cameron would be better deployed away from him. While he had handed over third circle to Alec in Ritual, they didn't need to provoke any situation in which he might feel the irresistible urge to issue a challenge. Especially not with a week to ritual, when Alec could already see a hint of horn forming over the man's head if he squinted the right way. Helen could be trusted to keep a cool head if there was any kind of confrontation with the warlocks, and she had the strongest charm work among them after Izzy.

Next… "Catarina, I want you to stay back. If anyone is wounded, we may need you at hand immediately. Strictly speaking, we're only up against one creature, but we don't know what she may have at her disposal that we don't know about. Hodge, Katie – you'll be our relay post. Jack's group will report their progress to you, and you can keep us updated. As the rest of us move forward, we'll do the same."

Everyone else would wait with them. Once they had concealed as many of the warlocks as they could, Magnus would portal them to their destination. Then they'd see what they were really up against when facing Carlotta Cross.

 


	20. Chapter 20

They stopped a few streets away from their destination – close enough to get there within a few minutes when the signal was given, but far enough to hopefully not tip off Carlotta Cross just yet.

"I should go in and pretend I'm ready to negotiate," Magnus said. "The sooner I get close to Louisa, the better our chances of getting her out of there alive."

Alec shook his head. "While we don't know how she builds that connection with other warlocks to drain their power, we shouldn't risk having you in the same room with her. Think of the resources she'd be getting if she managed to tap into your energy."

There was no plausible way to deny that. Still, Magnus was about to protest when Clary spoke up.

"Do you remember that time when Valentine had the institute and we needed to save Simon?"

Alec looked at her. He had been busy in a different part of that incident, but he knew the story, of course.

"Valentine demanded that Clary come and join him, or else he'd let her best friend die," Jace elaborated for the others. "Since we couldn't let her fall into his hands, I glamored myself as Clary and took care of Simon, while Clary snuck in by a different route. It worked then."

Magnus looked thoughtful. "It might work," he allowed. "If someone can distract her for long enough, I could portal in and grab Louisa."

"Alright," Alec agreed. "I'll do that."

Izzy shook her head at him. "No, big brother, you won't. You're needed here to coordinate the attack when it's time." Though they had been talking about an open attack as an 'if' so far, they didn't really doubt that it would come to it, unless something entirely unexpected happened and Carlotta Cross simply rolled over and surrendered when she saw them approach.

Alec barely suppressed a sigh. He knew his sister was right, but he didn't like it. "Who'll make a credible Magnus? Jace?"

"I don't know about credible," Jace said. "But I was a good enough Clary."

"We don't need credible." Elessar had moved to the front of the group surrounding them. "She doesn’t know Magnus. She won't be able to tell if he's credible or not."

"Are you volunteering?" Jace asked him.

The Seelie knight shook his head. "Not necessarily. There's another issue: she's not just taking warlocks' magic, but also their life force. So far, we don't know if she can do that with other beings as well. If she can, I'd be bringing her a feast, too. Immortal, you know?"

"But the Aunties suspect that with the rune damage removed, _we_ might be…" Izzy hesitated. They'd avoided thinking about the implications of that as far as they could, and if she said it now, the words would be impossible to take back.

She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "They suspect we might be immortal, too. Because we're beings of Air, and Air just is." That was what they had said, in any case, and she hoped Elessar would know what it meant, because she wasn't entirely sure herself.

"The Gales don't hold power," Melissa pointed out. "And we're tied to the cycle of life and death."

"But she gained warlock powers when she took the place of the real Carlotta Cross, whoever she was," Magnus reminded her. "If one of you goes in and anything goes wrong, we may be facing a Gale copy with all the powers you have. And if I may say so, you're scarily powerful so close to your anchoring point."

At the other end of the half-circle they formed around Alec and his closest friends, a tall figure pushed through the crowd. "There's one logical solution then." Hodge fixed Alec with an intense look. "I'll go. As the Aunties inform me, I'm far from recovered from the rune damage, so she won't get an immortal life force out of me. And if she takes me over like she did Carlotta, she'll get an incomplete body that no longer knows how to fight, and that doesn't have any experience with charms yet."

Alec didn't like the idea. He hated the thought that any of them was going to risk sacrificing himself. Being in command meant making the hard decisions, though, and he didn't shirk away from his duty.

"Fine," he said. "If you're sure you want to do it, you're reassigned. Sebastian, you'll help Katie with the relay post instead. We'll want a connection between Hodge's phone and yours so we can listen in to what's happening."

The blond man nodded and sketched a salute in Alec's direction. While far from incompetent, he was the weakest and least imaginative fighter among the Nephilim group.

"Glamor up," Alec continued, talking towards Magnus and Hodge. "Charlie, can you go in with Magnus, just in case she locks down the ley lines again and he needs more power than he carries?"

Before they had left, Magnus had added several pieces of jewelry to his person. Each of them was set with at least one crystal or gem, and all of those stones blazed with power in Alec's magic vision. He was virtually wearing a few batteries of magical power to tide him over any interruption of the normal supply he used for his spells.

Charlie carried her power in her music. She wasn't going to care about the ley lines. "I'm ready whenever," she confirmed.

*

As Hodge approached Carlotta Cross' front door, he had to make an effort not to keep looking at his left hand – Magnus' left hand, to be precise. With the glamor, it was impossible to tell where his arm ended. He could even move the fingers and the wrist, though any attempt of grasping anything in that hand would be doomed to fail. Still, it made him wonder if he should try putting on a glamor for his combat training.

Though he was sure that it was nothing but his imagination, he felt a number of new charms prickle on his skin underneath the glamor. Katie and her cousins, as well as his former students, had insisted on decorating him with a selection of defensive and shielding marks.

The phone in his pocket was set to mute but recorded everything that was going on around him and relayed it to Sebastian, who would be keeping a close ear on how things progressed for him.

Since Magnus had told him that the doorbell was disconnected and he didn't actually have the magic to make it ring anyway, he raised his right hand and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened for a while.

He was just debating repeating his knock, when he heard movement inside, just before the door swung open, revealing a woman standing in the short corridor, too far from the door to have opened it manually.

"I'm here," he said. The strange voice coming from his mouth was a disorienting experience. It didn't even sound like Magnus' voice – though it probably did sound like the way Magnus heard himself speak. "Let Louisa go."

"Can't do that," Carlotta said. "I still need her. Come in." The last two words were said in the clipped tone of a command.

He stepped forward, head held high and doing his best to imitate Magnus' self-assured manner. Even if he didn't need to convince someone who knew Magnus intimately, he had to make an effort to not be too blatantly incompetent in his role.

"Where is Louisa?" he asked the moment the door had fallen shut behind him. "I want to see she's still alive."

Carlotta shook her head and made a tutting sound. "No trust in my word?" she asked. "I did say I still needed her."

"No," Hodge said, forcing a smile. "I always prefer seeing things with my own eyes."

She studied him for a few moments. "If you try to reach for power, Louisa will regret it," she announced.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Hodge returned pleasantly. Who would have thought that a decade and a half of pretending not to chafe at his sentence every day would come in so handy?

Carlotta led him into a splendidly furnished dining room, the large oval table at its center still set for two. The scenery was marred by the unconscious woman lying with part of her upper body on the table, half on her plate. The view matched the image Magnus had received. Clearly, Carlotta hadn't bothered to move her from where she had fallen.

"It works so much faster on them," Carlotta said thoughtfully. "And so much longer… What do you think? Is the powder going to harm her? If it does, it'll be her own fault for trying to poison me."

"I should hope not," Hodge replied, bending over Louisa and adjusting her position to something that looked a little less acutely painful, while using his own body to shield his left hand from view. A frown creased his forehead as he studied her face. It might have been his imagination, but she seemed older than in the picture to him, her features drawn and exhausted even in sleep.

He turned back to Carlotta. "You started draining her already!" he accused her.

She laughed at that, a high-pitched sound just this side of being painful. "I needed some power. It's not a big deal. She'll recover. If you are reasonable, that is. Can't say what her magic will be like, though. Sometimes it doesn't react well to sharing." The happy expression on her face didn't match the situation at hand at all. "It'll be just punishment for her attempts at plotting against me. By the way – do you know who her co-conspirators are?"

"It's just me," he claimed. "No one else would be stupid enough to try to work against you."

While she didn't challenge his statement immediately, it was clear from her expression that she didn't believe him. "Come to my office," she said instead. "I'll need a contract from you."

*

Magnus waited until the exchange between his own voice and Carlotta's, muted a little by the layer of clothing around the phone, told him that they had left the dining room. Hodge's comments on the decoration in the office surely were meant to inform them that they had arrived and the path for them was now clear.

He looked at Charlie.

The Bard, her hair a deep black now that wouldn't stand out in the shadows, should she need to hide, held out a hand. "Take us in," she said.

Magnus raised his hands to open a portal before reaching out for Charlie.

Together, they stepped into the vortex of light…

…and emerged almost soundlessly on the other side. Both their boots had been treated with silencing charms, allowing them to move without drawing attention.

"Where to?" Charlie mouthed.

Magnus pointed at the door, but stayed behind Charlie as they started to move. He didn't know which of the rooms in the apartment was the one where Louisa was kept, and he preferred to rely on Gale Luck – which was most likely stronger with her than it was with him.

Understanding what he meant, she proceeded, moving slowly, her hands on her guitar and ready to play at need.

The door to the dining room, it turned out, had been left open. Louisa lay in an uncomfortable position across the table. Stains on her blouse suggested that she had landed on top of the cake that was now an ungainly heap on the plate pushed a little to the side.

As the two slipped into the room, they could hear a muted conversation through the wall.

"Stop stalling," Carlotta said. "You know you're going to sign. If you don't, Louisa will die, and I will make sure that she suffers."

"Why do you want the contract in the first place?" Magnus' voice asked, though the inflection was a little odd. "You just grabbed a hold of the other warlocks without such formalities, didn't you?"

"Ah," Carlotta replied as Magnus moved to give Louisa a quick examination. "But none of those were Magnus Bane and none of those had friends like you do. Do you think I fancy having a bunch of Gales turn up here?"

She didn't seem to realize that if the Gales disapproved of her actions – which they did – they weren't going to care about a contract.

Louisa, Magnus found, was alive and breathing steadily, though he, too, could clearly see the signs of Carlotta's attack on her.

"I'll sign," the other Magnus said. "Once I have seen that Louisa is up and well again. I'm not going to sacrifice myself if she's hurt beyond saving already."

Carlotta laughed. "Still trying to delay the inevitable?"

Magnus had cast another portal and moved to pick up the unconscious woman, but froze at the next words.

"How about this? For every minute that you delay, I will take some of her life force. We'll see how long it'll take before you give in."

They couldn't see what Carlotta was doing, but a glance at Louisa showed that she was clearly doing _something_. The woman's hair started graying at the temples, ever so slightly, as her complexion turned even paler.

Magnus looked at Charlie. "Take her and go!" he hissed, his voice low but urgent.

Charlie didn't object. If Carlotta had a connection to the other warlock going, she would realize the moment they took her out of reach – and then the days of Hodge Starkweather were probably numbered. Magnus wouldn't allow that, and she knew better than to try and convince him otherwise. She would have done the same.

"Take care," she said, before pushing her guitar onto her back and drawing a weightless charm on Louisa.

If Carlotta locked the ley lines again, they could only hope that the power Magnus carried stored on his body would be enough to get her out of the way.

Magnus shut down the portal the moment Charlie had stepped through.

As expected, their interference did not remain unnoticed.

There was nothing human about the roar of rage that sounded from the next room.

*

Though Sebastian didn't have his phone on speaker, they could hear the roar that came from it as the man winced and held the device away from his ear.

"Something just happened," Melissa commented drily.

"I think she realized she wasn't talking to Magnus," Sebastian suggested. "She—"

"To arms!" Alec interrupted him. He had been watching the building. The scream had been followed by a ripple that ran over the façade. The moment it settled, a thicket of vines had started to sprout from the cracks in the pavement and flagstones around the building, quickly rising to conceal the first floor entirely and reach up to the windows of the second.

As the growth spurt slowed, several small shapes detached themselves from the greenery near the bottom.

"Kobolds," Gary snarled, licking his lips. "Yummy! I haven't had kobold in about a century!"

A moment later, the man in jeans and cowboy boots was gone, replaced by a large, powerful horse with hooves shining as if made of steel and edges as sharp as a well-honed blade. The dentition, exposed in a decidedly un-horse-like grin, was a predator's.

As he raced towards the first of the small creatures, the others raised their hands. Kobolds, it turned out, were magic users.

Jace whipped up his sword, catching and deflecting a bolt on the blade. He and those standing around him could hear the hiss, as if the missile had been searing hot. Ashley and Carrie ducked another one speeding their way. Two flew at Izzy. Ducking one, she took the other in the side. It was a glancing blow, but the smell of charred leather filled the air.

"I'm alright!" she hurried to assure the others.

Chris had raised his crossbow as Alec put an arrow to his string. "Fire at will!" he ordered.

"Those plants are from the UnderRealm," Elessar said as they started to advance. "Stay out of their reach. They have thorns and they're poisonous for humans. They're also quite skilled at attacking."

They could see that, as several branches slammed forward, aiming for Gary, who was doing his best to trample one kobold to death without ruining his dinner entirely. His grey coat looked singed over one shoulder already, but it didn't seem to bother him much.

Alec loosed another arrow and had to drop and roll to avoid another bolt. The thicket seemed to spit out two new kobolds for every one they killed.

As he got back to his feet, Melissa was behind him, drawing a large design on the back of his armor. "Fireproof!" she told him before spinning away and running after Jace, ducking a missile aimed for her, to treat the other Shadowhunter the same way.

*

Following instinct, Hodge ducked and spun, evading the spell Carlotta threw at him.

"Whoever you brought with you," she screamed as she followed his movement, "they will regret this! So will you! I will teach you not to interfere with my work!"

A complicated set of gestures followed. Hodge couldn’t tell what she was doing. It didn't seem targeted at him. Something must have happened though, since a satisfied look came across her face.

Moments later, the room darkened as shoots of some plant rose into view in front of it, sprouting branches and twigs, unfolding leaves and concealing the outside world.

Within seconds, the room had grown pitch-black.

He wasn't sure he really believed that he could use charms the same way the Gales did. Though he'd seen the evidence in Alec and his friends, he hadn't had it in him to try yet. Now, he quickly sketched the _nyx_ rune onto his left arm. His relief at being able to see again was short lived.

He barely managed to evade the next spell thrown at him.

"Not even trying to fight back?" Carlotta sneered. "I would have thought you'd at least make an effort, Bane!"

"I am!" Magnus' voice came from the entrance to the room. His hands dashed through the air, shaping a spell.

Carlotta spun, her movements slowing and coming to a halt as his magic connected. The net had held her once already.

It worked this time, as well – at least for a short while. Either the ogre had figured out how to throw it off, or the lack of David's backup was noticeable.

She broke free of the spell, casting red bolts in quick succession at Magnus.

He let his shields absorb them.

This duel, he realized, had to end quickly. Carlotta had fuelled up on Louisa's life force just a few minutes ago, and he was going to be out of magic the moment he used up what he had stored in his stones.

Hodge had drawn a dagger he had concealed in his clothing. Even with the handicap from his missing hand, he wasn't going to go down without a fight. He hadn't dropped the glamor either.

Magnus came to a quick decision. He shot three balls of golden fire, not aimed at her, but at the desk and cabinets in the room. If she'd been a real warlock, seeing her work destroyed should have served as a distraction from what she was doing.

He kept a reserve at hand to shield, should anything that he hit be volatile enough to explode.

Carlotta roared again. The sound seemed impossible, coming from the woman's mouth. Still, her shape didn't falter.

Without giving himself time to contemplate what would happen if his plan didn't work, Magnus held out his arm, palm facing away from him, and channeled all the energy he could take hold of. This time, he directed it at the junction of ley lines in the room – the reason why the High Warlock had settled in this building and, though currently out of his reach, the source of a warlock's magic.

It was what Carlotta drew on, too, as she gathered her power for a spell that engulfed Magnus in flame, turning him into a human torch. His shields, up without requiring any thought on his part, prevented injury, though he was sweating profusely in the heat. The room must have been fireproofed, since the flames didn't catch on the furnishings or the floor.

Magnus didn't waiver.

The ley lines may have been shielded against being tapped by him, but they certainly weren't protected against having power fed into them.

Though unable to access their energy, he could feel the pressure build up in that crossing of lines, until a flood of magic broke free and surged up the connection Carlotta held to them. Still, she kept the magic under control so far.

Hodge's hand jerked back and then forward, the dagger leaving it at the perfect moment to bury itself between her shoulder blades.

While not exactly bringing about the reaction to be expected if a human – or a warlock – was hit by a dagger in the spine, the impact was enough to break her focus. As she screamed in rage, her hold on the magic slipped.

The discharge was a torrent, burning its way through her hands and deeper into her body. The flames that burst from her chest, accompanied by another inhuman shriek that was torn off suddenly as she collapsed to the floor, were of no color that fire had any business being.

Magnus was breathing hard as he drew a daylight charm on the wall of the room.

Wincing at the sudden light, Hodge squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed away the Nyx charm.

"Good work," Magnus told him.

"I was about to say the same to you," the other man replied. "What's that in front of the window?"

"Some sort of Seelie plant." Magnus barely glanced that way. "Probably a kind that has made it into a number of mundane fairy tales. If we don't want to portal out, we'll have to cut and burn our way through that."

The creature that had posed as Carlotta Cross was gone from the room. Ogres did not, as folklore had it, turn into stone when they died. A heap of fine earth was all that remained, a shining blade lying at the center.

Hodge bent down to retrieve his dagger, only to drop it again immediately and shake his hand. "Hot," he hissed. "And something else." The feeling had been reminiscent of an electrical discharge, though it had been far more unpleasant.

A brief gesture from Magnus caused a sheet of light blue light to sink down on the ogre's remains. With Carlotta's death, his control of the ley lines had returned.

"You can get your dagger now," he said when the sparkling blue winked out of existence. "And maybe drop the glamor. Talking to myself is weird."

*

Catarina looked up from her work on the glashtyn, where burns were receding under her hands and fur growing in again, when they entered the backyard. Those uninjured had taken the time to shower and change before they joined the rest of the group, partly out of a desire to avoid the Aunties' disapproval and partly because Magnus wasn't looking forward to facing the assembled warlocks and they didn't mind adding to his excuse to delay the moment.

While the warlocks apparently hadn't been invited inside, someone had brought out trestle tables and benches and distributed a number of pies on them. Gwen and Bea were hovering over the grey-haired man.

Louisa, looking wan and ill, but very much alive, had a quilt draped around her. She let it slip off her shoulders and got to her feet when she spotted Magnus.

"You won," she stated.

Gradually, all conversation in the backyard ceased as the warlocks focused on the group.

Magnus nodded.

"We need a replacement. Someone who can properly fill the position." She made an effort to keep her voice neutral.

"Choose one from among you," Magnus suggested. "If the others know what's good for them, they'll choose you. You had the courage to run what resistance you could put up against Carlotta."

Louisa shook her head. "I never had the power for that kind of position," she claimed. "And now… I don't know how much my magic will recover from what happened today. I may be barely any better than a mundane now. Besides, we have chosen."

Magnus' lips thinned. He knew where this was heading. "Louisa…"

"We invoke you, Magnus Bane, as the High Warlock of Calgary." That was the tiger-striped woman speaking, who had been involved in the attack on Chris.

Magnus closed his eyes briefly before looking at Alec.

His boyfriend's lips twitched into a wry smile. "I know you enjoyed the position," he said, his voice pitched low and intended only for Magnus' ears.

Still, he shook his head. "I can't. I'm sorry." The regret in his voice sounded genuine. "I have to expect that my friends will need my help soon. If – no: when that happens, I will be distracted. I may have to leave town and won't know when I'm back. I can't commit to anything that big."

"Then appoint a second to stand in for you in those times," the grey-haired warlock said. "None of us are truly strong in our power. She drained those that were during the first few weeks. Their energy went into the building of her lair and those wards she had around them, and into securing some other places. Unless they dissipated with her death, none of us stand a chance to get in there to begin with."

When Magnus didn't fill the pause that followed, he continued: "None of us can handle the power that comes with the position. We'd be vulnerable to the next creature like Carlotta Cross. Given what she did, we're not going to invoke a stranger either."

Magnus looked down. He wanted to say yes. He had always made it his business to take care of those downworlders who needed help. Still…

"You're aware of my relationship," he said, his gaze turned lovingly on Alec now. "You realize that you can't have me without a connection to the Nephilim and a connection to the Gales?"

Louisa slowly let her gaze sweep across the assembly, the pies, the Aunties and let it linger on Allie, who had just come out of the building with a pot of coffee, followed by Katie carrying a tray of cups. "I could imagine worse," she admitted.

Magnus' lips narrowed for a moment before he exhaled slowly. "Alright." He still didn't sound convinced that he was doing the right thing, but the relief that spread across the backyard was almost palpable. "You'll be my second then, Louisa."

Surprise registered on her face, and on those of several others. They had clearly expected him to choose either Chris or Catarina for that.

"My power…" she began.

"Contrary to popular belief," Magnus declared, "raw power is not what makes a good high warlock. You know the people of Calgary, you know their strengths and you managed to keep the conspirators from being found out for what – Months? Years?"

There were nods from the group that had met with her in the warehouse.

"That is settled then," Magnus declared. "Let's use tonight to get to know each other. Tomorrow, we can start tackling Carlotta Cross' legacy. We have at least one warehouse to clear out."

"What will you do with its contents?" the warlock whose Mark seemed to be double-jointed limbs wanted to know.

"We'll safely dispose of those special crates," Magnus told him. "As for everything else – all of you can take your pick. Then I will take mine. And anything that's left after that… well, I know a certain junk store that might be willing to sell it for a commission fee. We'll share the proceeds."

 

 

April 26th

_New York_

They were glad for the caffeine charms they could sketch on quickly while standing in a group together with the other three members of their team in a corner of the mess hall while they waited for further instructions. Charlie had taken them back to just a few seconds after they had left, but as far as their bodies were concerned, they had spent a few exhausting hours in between.

After they had finished combing the institute, they had gone to the designated assembly point as well, where one of Aldertree's men was already taking attendance.

As it turned out, three of the Nephilim in the institute were unaccounted for.

Some of those present, including Ian and Francesco, had helped themselves to some food. The four had declined. After having been fed by Allie, hunger was the least thing on their minds.

Speculations were flying around the room. Once in a while, someone made an attempt to leave, declaring the nightly assembly useless nonsense. Two of the institute leader's men had taken position near the door, though, and reminded everyone that orders were orders, and that they were going to cause nothing but trouble if they left now and were needed in a few minutes.

The lights had flickered on again a short time ago, which had brought about renewed mutterings.

Alec was just contemplating getting at least a cup of coffee for himself, when Ian pointed with his good hand. "Himself is finally here."

Aldertree, looking uncharacteristically sweaty, as if he had actually had to put in some muscle himself, had indeed just stepped through the door.

He silenced the flood of questions that sprung up with an imperious gesture.

A swipe of his stele activated a voice amplification rune, allowing him to speak normally while still being heard by everyone. "The issue with the core is fixed," he declared. "That is the good news I can give you. The bad news is that we know now that we are dealing with sabotage. Anyone who saw or talked to Gideon Lightbridge, Sandra Redflight or Raoul Goldentree at any point today is asked to remain to answer some questions. Those who have had any interaction with any of those three, no matter how slight, in the last two hours before the outage, please move over there. My assistant will be speaking to you first."

"What happened to those three?" Raj called out. He was standing with some of his friends, and was among those who chafed the most at being forced to stay put.

"I fear they did not survive their actions," Aldertree declared. "Lightwood! Bring your group here. I need to talk to you. Everyone else has leave to retire."


	21. Chapter 21

Alec went to join Aldertree, the others trailing behind him in a loose formation.

The older man gestured, indicating for them to follow him as he turned and left the mess hall.

They walked in silence. While they didn't know what Aldertree wanted of them, they weren't going to betray any sign of impatience or nerves. If this had been about the disappearance of Catarina Loss, surely he would have only requested the presence of Alec and his three friends. They had been the ones going through the institute after all.

Without volunteering any information, Aldertree led them to a small room not far from the portal area.

"I thought you might want to see this," he finally said, just before unlocking the door with his stele and pushing it open. "We found them like this, just outside the institute."

Alec stepped aside, motioning for Izzy to go past him. The door had cleared the view of the three missing Shadowhunters, standing motionless in awkward positions. They didn't react to the opening door, or the people joining them.

"I will send them on to Alicante as soon as you are finished here," Aldertree informed them. "This is the same state those three who attacked Miss Fairchild were left in."

Alec blinked on his magic vision, scanning the trio. Even set at the greatest intensity, he saw nothing, apart from the soft but unhealthy shine emanating from their runes.

"I've never seen anything like this," Youngwolf said as he inspected the three.

Alec stood aside, his arms loosely crossed in front of his chest. He remembered the accusations that they had done something to the three who had attacked Clary. This, if it became known, wouldn't help, since they had been out in the institute while everyone else had already headed to the mess hall.

In a way, by concealing the trio's state from the majority of the local Nephilim, Aldertree was doing them a favor.

He wondered where this was going to lead. Hadn't it been for the knowledge that Aldertree had already been given an ultimatum to get rid of them, he would have expected some sort of reverse blackmail, to balance out their knowledge of the man's past crimes. As it was, he didn't see the point.

*

The day, young as it was, deteriorated rapidly. They didn't linger long with the three. There was little doubt that they had been the ones responsible for the damage. There was blood on their clothes, and their blades, and traces of rust and dust, as well as small injuries on their hands that doubtlessly came from manipulating the lever.

Once they had gathered what information they could, they took their leave, returning to their own rooms to finally get some sleep.

Alec froze in the door frame, staring at the scene before him. At some point during their absence, someone had gone through his belongings, ransacked the room and left it in chaos. His bedding had been tossed onto the floor, every closet opened and cleared out as if someone had furiously been looking for something. He saw shards of broken glass glint between the chaos on the floor.

Without setting foot inside the room, he backed into the corridor, turning towards the others' rooms.

Jace and Clary were walking towards him already.

"Someone—" his _parabatai_ began. He broke off when he saw the look on Alec's face. "Yours, too?"

Alec nodded. He didn't need to ask what he meant.

Hurried steps with a decidedly angry tone to them preceded Izzy's appearance around a bend in the corridor. "Lucky thing we don't have anything precious here," she declared the moment she reached them. "But we'll have to report that."

"Which means we can say goodbye to the notion of getting any sleep tonight," Clary said.

Jace gave a half-shrug. "We'd not be sleeping much in that anyway," he pointed out. "Let's go and make sure Aldertree doesn't sleep tonight either. And if I catch the one who did that—"

"If it was the saboteurs, there'll be no catching involved," Izzy reminded him.

Her brother looked at her with a deep frown. "Why would they destroy our rooms?"

"Why would they turn off the power core?" Alec returned. "I mean, this could have been some of Aldertree's people who were with him and not with us in the mess hall, but I don't see why they should have done that. Surely they could have just fixed the cameras and gone in while we were on mission."

"You think the power outage was a cover for _this?_ " his sister asked.

Alec made a vague gesture. He wasn't certain what he thought about that at all. He didn't think that their group was important enough to anyone other than the group around Valentine and their father to warrant that kind of effort. Yet, as he had just said, those people could have gotten the same result with a lot less fallout.

"I don't know if it was a cover, or just a convenience," he said eventually. "But right now, let's get Aldertree back out of bed and report this. I'll try to get us tomorrow off so we can clean up that mess and see what's missing."

Somehow, he didn't doubt that _something_ would be.

_Calgary_

Though they had slept a few hours after they had put their rooms back into a semblance of order, they still found themselves feeling exhausted by the time they travelled to Canada the next day.

The rest they had gotten hadn't been particularly restorative.

As Alec had expected, each of them was missing a few small items, though there was no way to be certain if they wouldn't still turn up somewhere. The pieces seemed entirely random, including one of Izzy's hair clips, a brush and a few pencils from Clary, a pen from Jace's desk and some trinkets Alec had collected during some childhood holiday by the beach.

They were just relating the incidents of the last night to the assembled Gales and Calgary's new High Warlock, when the Aunties arrived in force.

The four old women stood, not saying anything, and waited until they had their full attention.

"While I understand your concern about all of that," Bea said once they were all looking at her, "wild speculation will lead nowhere. We have found a solution to another one of your issues, though."

Alec was all for solutions. He shifted just enough to not be leaning so much into Magnus that Beatrice Gale would be likely to accuse him of being too disrespectful of her help by continuing to cuddle with his boyfriend while she was solving problems for him. He couldn't deny that he would have liked to do a lot more than cuddle, though. After the last night's event, Magnus' proximity and the physical contact between them was a soothing balm on his mind.

"Please, let's hear it," he said.

Auntie Bea looked at her three colleagues with a ghost of a smile. "Now if only he could teach some politeness to our young people too," she noted before turning back to them. "We've devised a way to fix your charm problem."

Charm problem? Alec hadn't known that he had one. The others looked just as confused as he felt when Auntie Trisha took over.

"Actually, we remembered something that was done at times when we were quite young, but has fallen out of use. Sadly."

"With a few small alterations, it should suit your needs just fine," Auntie Carmen added. "Blood magic is strong, but the young people don't want to take that kind of commitment anymore today." She sniffed audibly.

Bea scowled at her. "It hadn't been done for almost a generation when I heard about it," she said, too honest to let the inaccuracy stand.

Jace and Alec looked at each other.

"You mean the _parabatai_ rune?" they asked, speaking at the same time.

Bea inclined her head wordlessly.

"Then let's hear it!"

*

"And there I thought you came over to celebrate my birthday," Jack laughed as they took position in the park. While Auntie Trisha and Auntie Bea insisted that any location would be equally suitable for what they were going to do, Auntie Gwen and Auntie Carmen were all for using the place of power, since they happened to have one at their disposal.

After a short consultation between themselves and with Magnus, they had decided to go with the latter option. They were expected in the park anyway.

"But we did," Izzy assured him. "We just have a small task to complete first."

"We?" Alec asked her with raised eyebrows. "When last I checked, it was Jace and me doing the completion. You're just going to watch."

"I love you, too, big brother," his sister returned. She was carrying a box of reddish-brown wood, marked with a number of strong charms. It had come from Auntie Bea's possession, and she'd offered to lend it to them for their plans.

The two young men stripped out of their sweaters and the t-shirts they wore beneath, laying the garments aside and turning to face each other. Their eyes were on each other's parabatai runes.

Without prompting, the friends who had come with them formed a circle around them, ready to witness what was about to happen. The Gales looked interested and intrigued, while their fellow Nephilim were more wary. Izzy stepped forward, folding open the lid of the box to reveal two identical looking short blades with triangular tips and black wood handles, also marked with a series of charms that seemed burned into the material. Though clearly old, they were razor-sharp.

Clary waited by her shoulder, a small cup in hand.

Alec reached out first, taking one of the knives – athamés, the Aunties called them. As Jace picked up the other one, he pulled the point across his arm to draw blood. Red welled from the thin line, kept from dripping off immediately by the way he held his arm until Jace had repeated the action.

As Izzy took a step back, Clary moved in, holding out the cup to let them both drip blood into it so it could mix.

Once they considered the amount collected sufficient, each of them drew a line of stich charms over the cut to keep the edges together and stop the flow. They would apply a proper healing later, but they didn't want any energy interfering with the working they were about to attempt.

They dipped the tips of their knives into the red fluid and approached each other.

Though they hadn't discussed adding the Nephilim element to their charm work, they both spoke at once as they stood at an angle that gave them access to each other's runes. "Entreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee."

The blood-coated points served as a stele, and though neither of them applied enough pressure to score the skin, they could feel a burn at the touch, not so much reminiscent of a knife, but of a brand.

"For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge." Their movements were perfectly in sync as they completed the first sweeping line. They didn't flinch from the pain, which was not entirely unlike the cold burn of their runes.

"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried." They looked at each other, the next words refusing to come. Even without having their eyes fixed on their work, their hands continued to draw the shape of the mark. Back when they had first gone through the ritual, they had practiced it so often that it still seemed imprinted in their minds.

"May naught but death part thee and me." Alec said, just before they completed the design, with Jace following a fraction of a word after him.

They closed their eyes, leaning back their heads as the burn of the charm flared once, then subsided.

Glancing at the runes, they saw no difference at first.

A closer scrutiny revealed a different truth, however: the black line of the Rune now looked like a tattoo used to cover up an older scar – the edges aligned as precisely as they could get, but the quality of the skin a little different from that of the other runes they bore.

"Do you feel any different?" Izzy asked curiously as she took back the knives and wiped them on a piece of silk Auntie Bea had included for that purpose.

"Not really," Jace said. "But something happened while we were doing that."

"Something definitely happened," Alec agreed. "Clary, we need to burn the rest of that blood."

"No," Clary told him, tilting the vessel to let him see. "You don't. There's nothing left inside."

*

Jack was gracious about sharing his birthday barbecue in the park with the two of them. In fact, it was he who kept telling everyone who came to join them that there was more than one thing to be celebrated this day.

The park was the only logical location for the event – not so much because of the size of the family, which could have still fit into the manor house with little crowding, but because, with ritual drawing near, having a number of Gale males in close proximity could quickly turn into an issue.

It was Graham, Michael and Brian who manned the barbecue – precisely because they neither ran any risk of trying to skewer each other, nor would be particularly conducive to separating any of the Gales, should fighting break out.

Some of the tables they had used for their warlock guests the day before had been brought over, with a choice of pies ready for everyone to take their pick.

It wasn't long before a sleek brown shape came speeding through the air, landing neatly between the plates to approach one of the meat pies.

Jace, spotting the bird, rolled his eyes and hurried over.

"No you don't!" he said sternly. "You go hunt your own food. This is people food, and you're neither people nor a pet. Shoo!"

When the bird only looked up at him, her head cocked to one side, he sighed before holding out his arm to let the falcon hop onto it.

"Go get your own food! Bird food!" Jace said, fixing the animal with a hard, disapproving look. "Catch a rabbit or something!"

With that, he pulled up his arm sharply and launched the falcon into the air, where she spread her wings with a disapproving squawk before dashing away from the assembly.

"Isn't that a bit much to ask?" Katie had come up behind him.

Jace turned to look at her. "Not really. Falcons of this kind can catch hares even. A rabbit won't be out of its size range."

Katie visibly filed the information away. "That's good to know. But for all I know about rabbits, they're going to be underground right now. Can the falcon crawl into a warren?"

"Nope," Jace confirmed. "I guess she'll have to pick something else then."

*

"Look who's there," Alec said, leaning towards Magnus as he indicated the direction. "I sure hope he's not going to try to eat us."

"Not in Allie's presence," his boyfriend returned, smirking.

The latest addition to the party was a tall man with inhumanly red irises that almost seemed to glow. He was dressed in black, all leather and silk – a combination that could have looked silly but seemed perfectly fitting on him. Though clearly exuding a predatory air, his movements looked a little awkward, as if he was either feeling sore from something or trying to compensate for some sort of issue.

The impression was reinforced by the way he held one arm to his chest when he wasn’t using it – or making an effort when facing his nephew.

Like Jack, Viktor was a dragon. They knew the story of the last time he had challenged Jack. As was the custom among dragons, which seemed to be locked in an eternal combat for survival – even if they were allied with each other for some greater cause, they never knew when their allies would decide that they preferred a hearty meal to a comrade in arms.

Jack sported a half-moon scar on his cheek as a reminder of one of those attacks.

That day, Viktor had lost a wing and suffered some broken bones in the resulting crash. He'd survived the injury and the fall, however, and crawled off somewhere to lick his wounds. Later, Jack had come across him, holed up in the Midrealms and hoping not to draw the attention of his brothers, who would surely turn him into the main course of their next lunch, given half a chance.

It was the Gale influence, Jack claimed, that had made him leave his Uncle alive. After all, Allie had taught him not to eat anything he could have a conversation with. He'd gone farther than that, however, finding a remote location that seemed safe enough and giving Viktor a hand in starting his own business there.

Of course, that hadn't been entirely unselfish. He happily dropped in on Viktor in the Russian taiga when he had any need he assumed could be covered from Viktor's magic store and services. Viktor never asked for payment and Jack never offered it. As dragon tradition went, it was a small price to pay for keeping his life.

For the last few months, he had shared his magical house in the forest with Giulio Whitelake, a Shadowhunter who had needed a place to sit out _yin fen_ withdrawal. He'd been hooked on the drug by Aldertree, just as it had happened to Izzy the year before. Where she had had the support of her family, however, Whitelake had ended up on the street, presumed dead.

He'd been reluctant to let them rescue him, but had gone along with their suggestions eventually. Neither he nor Viktor had been overjoyed by Jack's idea of stashing him away with his uncle, but the last time they had seen the two – back when they had returned from the parallel dimension and Viktor had been fuming, figuratively and literally, about the damage they had done to his travelling artifact by bringing back far more luggage than they'd apparently been supposed to, and a couple of friends to boot, – it had looked as if they'd come to terms with the arrangement.

Whitelake was with him now, too, his attire white to Viktor's black. He stood at parade rest, just as Alec so often did, as Viktor presented a wrapped parcel to Jack.

"Is it going to explode when I open it?" the younger dragon asked.

Even only seeing Viktor's back, Alec could tell he was rolling his eyes. "I don't have that much of a death wish," he announced.

In spite of the words, Jack seemed to believe that caution was in order. He placed the gift with the others he had received so far, neglecting to remove the colorful paper from it. It sat between a comic drawn by Clary, illustrating some of the adventures they had had with Jack, a House Targaryen coffee mug and a dragon motif scarf half-draped over a How to Tame your Dragon breakfast set. The Dragonheart DVD almost slipped off the table where he collected his gifts when he turned away.

"I spot a theme," Whitelake observed as he let his eyes roam over the assorted gifts.

Jack gave him a grin that showed teeth more dragon than human. "Just as I like it," he returned. "Please – help yourself to the pies. Don’t sample the guests, though."

It was impossible to tell if the plume of smoke out of Viktor's nose was one of amusement or exasperation. As he turned slowly to scan the assembled guests, his eyes fell on Hodge, juggling with a plate and a cup.

"Looks like someone sampled him already," he noted.

"That was Uncle Jace!" one of the girls skipping past supplied helpfully.

"Jace?" Whitelake and Viktor both blurted out.

Alec, biting his lip, decided that he had most definitely spent enough time eavesdropping on that particular conversation. Meeting Magnus' amused look and twinkling eyes, he grinned and indicated the barbecue with a sideways motion of his head.

*

The other three falcons had flown in as well as they had settled around a camp fire that was burning merrily, enjoying pie and an assortment of the meat, fish and cheese that came off the barbecue in a steady stream.

In contrast to Jace, his friends had no qualms about sharing their food with their feathered friends.

"Some day, those birds will approach the wrong people for food and we'll all regret it," Jace's voice said near Alec's ear.

Turning, ready to tell his _parabatai_ that he should give the falcons a little more credit than that and that he'd never even seen them approach a Gale other than David, who was on good terms with every creature living in the park – being one himself – he found to his surprise that there was no one there.

"Alec?" Magnus asked.

Alec shook his head, grinning as he scanned the assembly and finally saw Jace, just walking over to the barbecue again.

"I'm so used to Jace complaining about it when we feed the birds that I was actually hearing him comment in my head," he admitted.

Clary laughed. "He'll come around," she claimed. "He's relented a lot about the birds already." As she spoke, she held out the last piece of her pie to the falcon perched on her knee. "Let me fly with you?" she asked when the last crumbs were gone.

The falcon dipped his head in an almost human fashion, and Clary closed her eyes. Reproducing the twist of her mind that took her into the falcon's head took some focus, and she found herself humming the tune Charlie had used to help them with this back when they'd been travelling. Though the bard had since explained the lyrics of the song to them, she couldn’t remember the Russian words. The melody came easily enough, however, and while she didn't usually work with music, it served as a memory aid.

A moment later, the bird shook himself and sprang into the air with a powerful beat of wings.

"She's flying," Alec said when Jace returned a few moments later, turning a slightly concerned gaze at Clary.

Without giving any indication of what he thought of that, Jace folded his legs under him, getting comfortable once more between his fiancée and his _parabatai_. He had just speared a piece of perfectly grilled meat with his fork, when another bird decided to join him. Its flight was a little more labored than Clary's had been, owing doubtlessly to the burden it carried.

A burden that it dropped into Jace's lap, aiming surprisingly well and knocking the plate out of his hands.

He surged to his feet out of reflex, causing the dead bundle of fur and blood to slip into the grass along with what had been intended as part of his dinner.

The falcon had circled meanwhile, and landed lightly on the ground, apparently trusting that the friendly humans would keep the fire at bay. She looked up at Jace quizzically before giving a demanding chirp.

Katie, sitting not far from them, pointed at the carcass. "I guess he went silflay," she noted. "And _she_ has deserved a bit of pie now that she's fulfilled her mission."

*

Still feeling a little overwhelmed by the apparent vastness that was the Gale family – he could have sworn there were still some faces that he hadn't seen before – Hodge had moved a little way off to the side, just far enough to be out of sight of where the main assembly was.

The air was cool, the sun still high enough to give light to see by.

He had, he realized after walking for a little, reached the place where he and Jace had gone through their first attempt at combat training.

He had hated how badly it had gone for him. He'd hated how awkward he had felt facing Carlotta Cross the day before as well. It was just one hand he was missing, by the Angel! It shouldn't have impaired him that much!

Without thinking about it, he launched into a warm-up drill, a simple sequence of attacks and blocks. Unfortunately, shadow-fighting felt not the least bit better than when he had had an actual opponent facing him.

It did, however, draw an audience quite quickly.

As if magically aware that something interesting was going on beyond the next hill, a swarm of Gale children approached. He tried to ignore them at first, hoping that they would lose interest. At least they weren't going to tell anyone about the mistakes he made. They wouldn't know.

By the time he reached the end of his sequence, however, they had started to copy him, trying to mirror his movements with limited success.

"Not quite," he said, long habit as a combat trainer drawing the words from him before he could even think about it.

He found himself looking into expectant eyes.

Just great. He'd have to hope that none of the Gale parents were going to rip him a new one for introducing their offspring to martial arts.

Even as he walked over to the group, he realized that that was probably not going to be his main problem. Between Graham the ex-assassin, the fearsome twins and their assorted Shadowhunter friends, the children probably had gotten plenty of exposure already.

He had just roughly sorted them by size and lined them up to show them the first moves – so basic that he was confident he could execute them precisely even now – when he heard a rustling sound that he was reasonably sure shouldn't have been there.

It took him another few moments to realize just what that sound was: Small feet on grass. A large number of small feet.

They were moving fast. By the time he had come to the conclusion that the smart thing to do was to return to the main party and report on what he had heard, a mass of short, spindly creatures had come into sight. While they hadn't cut off their retreat yet, it was evident that they would find it easy enough to catch up with the children if he told them to run now.

Goblins, he realized as he took in the crude armor and features unpleasant to human eyes. While unarmed, they were flexing fingers tipped with sharp claws. Goblins weren't a match for a trained Shadowhunter. The only issue was that they tended to appear in numbers.

One of the children shrieked.

The goblins surged forward, closing in on them.

Without thinking, Hodge sprang into action, the dagger he'd been wearing in his hand before he could think about drawing it.

*

A child's shriek, followed by another one, cut through the falling dusk.

The adults around the campfire and the pie buffet jerked up, all springing to full alert as they looked around.

Charlie's hand closed on the neck of her guitar as she surged to her feet. Checking her surroundings, she realized two things.

The first was that there were barely any children around. That wasn't surprising or worrying in and of itself. This was their park. The children could play wherever they liked. Except that something clearly had just happened.

The second brought a frown to her face as she joined the crowd hurrying the way the sound had come from. The Aunties were nowhere to be seen either – and neither was David.

With just a few days to ritual, it was entirely possible that her cousin had had to let off some energy to preserve his human likeness. It shouldn't have taken four Aunties to take care of that, though.

So where had the other three gotten to?

Katie pushed through the crowd until she reached Charlie's side.

"Hodge is somewhere out in the park," she noted, a hint of worry in her voice. "Whatever is going on—"

She broke off as she reached the top of one of the many hills in the park. The reason for that scream was clear before them now: A full horde of goblins had descended upon the children.

Whatever they had hoped to achieve, however, they weren't going to get it lightly.

A tall figure was putting up an amazing display of martial arts, a dagger in his hand and his entire body deployed as a weapon of its own. Apparently, faced with a dire situation, Hodge Starkweather had found his combat skills.

As Charlie watched, shaking her head mutely, she could feel and hear his Song, muted and suppressed under layers of fear, uncertainty and self-loathing, explode in bright, strong notes.

He and Jace, she mused, were more similar than they knew. Like the younger Shadowhunter's Song, Hodge's had a definite similarity to a popular one. Charlie found herself humming along with it in time as she adjusted the tuning of her guitar. There was a note that shattered goblins, as she knew from experience.

She didn't think she would need it. Her sisters had moved in, weapons out, as had Alec and his friends. Four falcons were diving into the crowd as well, slashing with strong beaks and talons.

Faced with a sudden majority on the other side, the goblins started to look for a way out. The presence of Jack, walking slowly in their direction even without any overt hostility was enough to make them turn tail and run. She could only hope that they knew how to get back to the UnderRealm now.

Throwing a whistled glamor on herself, Charlie slipped away into the darkness. She had a nagging suspicion she wanted to confirm before she talked to anyone about it.


	22. Chapter 22

Moving as silently as she could, Charlie approached the three grey-haired figures standing on the next rise, watching the scene before them, where everyone was making sure the children were unharmed and congratulating their protector on his work.

Even from behind, Bea, Gwen and Trisha looked smug.

"Happy with your little stunt?" Charlie asked just before she dropped her glamor. Her voice was cold and hard as steel. "Where's Carmen?"

"Keeping David busy," Bea said, so smoothly that Charlie suspected that she hadn't approached as unnoticed as she had hoped.

"Right," she returned. "Because he wouldn't approve of you bringing in a horde of _goblins_. And neither does anyone else."

Bea snorted as her companions sniffed disdainfully. "It worked, didn't it?" she asked, not seeming the least chagrined. "He needed some incentive. We provided it."

"Auntie Bea…" Charlie began, "do you really think he will appreciate that method? Or, for that matter, that anyone else will?"

"They don't have to," came the retort, the tone implying that this was one of those times where one had to do what was good for others, whether they wanted to or not. "And you, Charlotte, do not need to tell them if you believe they'll feel better for not knowing."

The Bard scoffed. "Right. Because Allie needs me to tell her about such things?"

"Alysha will be the first to understand that sometimes, you have to do what is needed," Bea said.

"When the children were involved?" Charlie shot back. "I don't fucking think so."

"Watch your language." Bea's voice was neutral in spite of the command.

"Besides," Trisha added, her eyes sparkling, "the situation was perfectly controlled at all times. We were right here and ready to help if help was needed. Which it wasn't." She had clearly enjoyed the scenery while the fight had been going on. Charlie suspected that Daniel would be in for a busy night.

"He isn't family yet," the Bard reminded the three, referring to Hodge.

Bea laughed at that. "But they all are, Charlotte. They all are."

 

_New York_

Alec didn't think he was going to sleep much as he lay in his bed, staring into the darkness of his room. He made an effort not to toss and turn. Even with a day's distance, his room felt violated after that search. Every instinct in him screamed against sleeping in a place that had been proven to be accessible to intruders.

No matter how often he told himself that it wasn't true, that those intruders had, in fact, gone to quite some lengths to enter their rooms, he couldn't seem to convince himself on any level that mattered.

He wondered how the others were faring. They hadn't gotten any more sleep than he the night before. Were they doing any better now? If not, maybe they should have just crashed in the same room, so one of them could keep watch.

Closing his eyes once again, he focused on deep, even breaths. If he couldn't sleep, at least he could _rest_.

"How does she do it?"

The voice made his eyes fly open again as he surged into a sitting position. "Jace?"

There was no answer. Groping for his witchlight, unwilling to use a sunlight charm or apply a NightSight one in view of the cameras, he scanned his room.

There was no one there.

"Jace?" he asked again. "Not funny!"

His bedroom remained silent.

Great. Now his mind was playing tricks on him, too. Doubtlessly, he needed a night or two that wasn’t interrupted, cut short, or delayed.

With a sigh, he extinguished the witchlight and lay back down for another attempt at forcing sleep.

He had just started to doze off when his eyes blinked open again, a sudden thought intruding on his mind and gone again before he could fully parse it.

A wave of disorientation hit him. What had just happened? He had changed position, apparently, looking down at something – someone. Clary, sleeping peacefully, one arm thrown up onto her pillow. How could she even sleep like that, now?

The moment he realized that that was what the Jace of his imagination had commented on just a few minutes before, he jerked upright.

For a moment, he was surprised to find himself in his own room, his own bed – the sheets crumpled beneath him from his restlessness, the quilt bunched up at the foot end by now.

A dream.

Obviously, he scolded himself. What else would it have been? He pulled the blanket back on top of himself. The charms that were thick in it, worked into every inch of the fabric, were soothing. Still, even with a Gale quilt to help him along, sleep refused to return as it should.

 

April 27th, 2017

For the third time, Jace was wondering if he should talk to Alec about the last night.

For the third time, he decided against it. What was he going to say? He could about imagine Alec's reaction if he took him aside and asked: Oh, by the way, did you happen to share my head for a bit last night? Surely that would go over so well.

Still, the memory kept nagging at him.

Alright, he told himself. The next chance he got to talk to Alec alone, without the other two, he would say something – if only to have it confirmed that he'd been making things up due to not having gotten enough sleep.

He could no longer even pretend that he wasn't going to be immensely glad when they were turning their backs on New York for good.

Armed with caffeine, both in liquid and charm form, they had set out that morning on their usual patrol round. His list of potential targets continued to match what attacks there were. Lindsay's list had matched his well enough to look as if she was making an honest effort, which was more than they had expected.

With the additional input from the files they had snuck from London, Jace was reasonably certain that he knew where to expect the next one – and his friends had agreed.

That was why they weren't spending their patrol walking the streets of New York, but concealed in a dark corner with a view of their expected target.

Someone shrieked, and Jace tensed, his hand going for his blade already before he forced it to relax again. His eyes met Alec's, and he could see his own exasperation reflected in his _parabatai_ 's face. Why did mundanes think it was a good idea to screech like that when they were having fun? Didn't they know people might think they were in distress and try to rush to their aid?

A moment later, a shrill scream of an entirely different quality split the air. There was no amusement in this one. It spoke of pure, stark terror.

All four rushed forward, every thought of exhaustion forgotten for the moment.

There would be no attempt at tagging a demon today, he realized as they drew into view of what had caused that reaction. Today's demons were numerous but small, buzzing in the air like a swarm of angry hornets, each about fist-sized.

There was no counting them.

Alec had switched from bow to blade immediately upon seeing what they were up against. Shooting the insect-like creatures was going to be a useless effort. As soon as he saw the effect of Izzy's staff slicing through the buzzing mob, knocking several of them to the ground as charred, shapeless lumps that were still smoking slightly, he switched again. Electrum clearly was more effective than adamas.

Jace followed suit. Though his electrum sword was meant to stab, he thought that at least until their numbers thinned out considerably, he would be able to hit enough of them by simply slashing through the thick of the swarm.

A piercing pain in his arm told him that he'd been stung. He ignored it. If he had identified these demons correctly, it would take more than one sting to put him at any risk. Besides, he could activate his _iratze_ or his anti-venom rune with a thought. It was the stele that harmed them, not the runes, as far as they knew.

Trying to keep the insect-like creatures contained, the four moved apart, doing their best to circle their opponents and press in on them. With the black mass of bodies dashing back and fro surrounding him, Jace lost sight of his friends for a moment. Spinning, he almost collided with Izzy, who came from the other direction in a similar move.

"Wish we could just throw a net over them," he told her, panting slightly. "Know any good charms for that?"

"No," his sister started to answer, her body and her staff never stilling. "I—wait." Trusting in him to keep the swarm from descending on her with full fury the moment she stopped moving, she thrust her staff down, one end digging into the loose soil underfoot.

Jace recognized the design she was drawing after the first two lines, and he used his free hand to copy it on his own skin. Charlie had taught it to them back when they had visited the Seelie Realm together with her.

Apparently, the creatures around them were at least as much insects as they were demons. The insect-repelling charm, in any case, worked well enough, drawing a sound of protest from them as they changed direction, a column of multi-legged small bodies shooting up into the sky to rush away from their location.

They looked at each other, nodding with satisfaction. Neither of them was truly afraid that the demons might find another place to attack and try again. None of the ones they had encountered so far had done that. Once forced into leaving the place of their scheduled attack, they had run to disappear and not be seen again.

"Alec, that—" Jace began, turning to his _parabatai_ , only to freeze immediately.

By his side, Izzy had gone rigid. Clary looked around in confusion.

Their leader was nowhere to be seen.

Jace' initial moment of surprise gave way to horror when, looking down, he spotted the place from which Alec must have disappeared. It was marked by a heap of black fabric, tangled in a familiar quiver and bow, sword and staff.

*

The world around Alec darkened for a moment.

When sight returned, the insect demons were gone.

Finishing the movement he had just been executing, he felt cold tile under his bare foot. His hands clenched on nothing, his staff gone along with his other weapons and – as he realized – every stitch he had been wearing.

Regaining his equilibrium instead of losing balance and stumbling was a matter of reflex for him. Keeping it, along with a posture that would allow him to defend himself with the options his bare body afforded him instead of trying to cover himself was an effort of will.

Without understanding the details, he realized that he had, somehow, been portaled away from the fight. It hadn't been the effect of a warlock's portal...

He was indoors now, the room bare safe for a sort of lectern and brazier.

A quick glance down showed him a design drawn on the tiles by his feet: A geometrical shape of a multi-pointed star, filled with other forms that seemed to blur and swirl before his eyes when he focused on them.

It looked a little like one of the summoning stars Magnus had drawn for them in the past.

Wait. Had he just been _summoned_ like some demon?

"What did you do that for?" he asked the figure standing behind the lectern. He was surprised by how steady his voice sounded.

As he focused on the scene before him, he realized that a number of small objects were lying in one row across the upper end of that single piece of furniture.

She looked up – for it was a woman, tall and slim, with long black hair and features that were quite beautiful – but it was a ruthless, cruel beauty that made him want to avert his eyes and hide…

…except that there was nowhere to hide.

He took a small step forward, stopping just before he touched the barrier that surrounded the design on the floor, invisible to the unaided eye, but clear to his magic vision. Turning his gaze back to the woman, he had to tune down that skill immediately. Her power signature outdid even that of Magnus by a multiple.

"Most of what they brought me was useless," she said, not answering his question but indicating the selection of pieces before her. "But then there was this."

Without moving from where she stood, she reached out with one arm to sink her hand into the flame of the brazier, the fire apparently not hurting or harming her in any manner. It didn't even lick at the loose sleeve of the robe she wore.

When she pulled it back, she was holding a small metal tool.

He recognized it, though he hadn't even noticed it missing, assuming it to be safely within a box of fletching tools that hadn't seemed violated.

"It had a drop of blood clinging to it." Her voice sounded distant, almost as if she was speaking from a dream.

The words brought the memory with them easily. It hadn't been that long that he had cut his finger on that tool while he was using it. He had cleaned if off and, following the Gales' advice, destroyed everything that had come into contact with his blood. It appeared that he had missed a bit.

Next time, he resolved, he would take the tool apart and treat every piece of it to a thorough cleaning before using it again. He could only hope that there would be a next time.

"What did you bring me here for?" he asked, refusing to acknowledge what she had said and allowing her to control the conversation.

She looked at him, a smile on her lips that didn't reach her eyes. "I have a life to save – and you keep interfering with it."

*

Jace lowered his hands, still clutching Alec's t-shirt. "I can't get a bearing on him," he said, his voice distraught.

"He must be over water then," Izzy told him practically. "You'd know if there was something wrong with him." You'd know if he was dead, was what she meant. She had seen Alec back when Valentine had killed Jace. There was no way Jace could have missed that kind of pain if their bond had broken.

"Yeah." He let go of the fabric with one hand to rub the spot where his _parabatai_ rune was through his shirt. "I don't get anything unusual from him. He doesn't even seem particularly upset."

"That's good then, isn't it?" Clary asked.

They both looked at her darkly.

"How good can it be if he's somewhere, apparently naked and unarmed and without any way to contact us?" Jace wanted to know. "If Aldertree has anything to do with this, I'll—"

"Aldertree has absolutely nothing to do with it!" a familiar, loathed voice snapped behind them.

They whirled, facing the head of their institute. That he had come out to inspect the scene himself suggested that he was considering this a matter of the greatest urgency.

"Report, Soldier!" Aldertree continued.

Jace and Izzy snapped into alert position, with Clary standing between them just as she had been. It was Izzy who rattled off a summary of what had happened.

Her brother looked around, making sure that the team that had come in with Aldertree was busy taking care of removing any signs of demon activity from the scene and talking the mundanes into believing that they hadn't seen what had just happened here.

"Don’t get your hopes up," he hissed when Izzy had finished. "Each of us knows how to contact Whitelake. This changes nothing between you and us."

For a moment, Aldertree seemed about to say something. Maybe he was debating with himself whether he wanted to fill them in on the ultimatum set by Valentine and Robert. Whatever it was, he decided against it. "Didn't expect it," he said instead. Then he raised his voice, his next words spoken loudly enough for the others to hear them as well. "Alexander Lightwood is a superb Shadowhunter. Wherever he was taken, he's not helpless. He must be retrieved, however. As his family, you are in the best position to do so. You are relieved of any other duties for the time being. Find him."

With that, he turned and strode away, not even waiting for their response.

"I have never received an order from him that I would have loved to complete more," Jace muttered, once again digging both his hands into the black garment. He closed his eyes, his face distorted with effort.

"Let's return to the institute," Izzy suggested slowly. "We need to check if this kind of kidnapping has happened before, or who might have done it. It wasn't a portal or anything I've ever seen."

"But—" Jace began, before deflating slightly and nodding. "You're right, Iz. Let's go. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find a way to get Alec."

They snatched up their leader's other things, taking them along as they left the scene.

As soon as they were out of view of the other Shadowhunters, Izzy stopped, fiddling with the objects she was carrying.

"What are you doing, Iz?" a hint of irritation had crept back into Jace' voice. "Do you think you can track him better with his jeans that I can with his t-shirt?"

"No," his sister replied. She had found what she was looking for and slid a hand into the pocket to retrieve its content. "But I think this is going to be better at tracking him than any of us are."

She placed Alec's phone on the top of a low wall and left it there. "Yours found you back in Idris, too."

*

"A life to save?" Alec asked, his voice as neutral as he could make it. "Whose – and how are you going to do that?"

Her eyes roamed his body slowly before she spoke, and it took all the willpower he had to keep from flinching, or turning, or covering up parts of his anatomy he really didn't need anyone but Magnus' eyes on. Showing her that she was making him uncomfortable, however, was something he needed even less than that.

"My son's," she returned evenly after a long pause. "Whom your brother tried to kill."

"If Jace tried to kill him, he broke the accords first and didn't surrender when told to," Alec said practically. He didn't for a moment think she was talking about Max. Of course, it was possible that she was connected to one of the people who had died in the blast of the Soul Sword, back when Jace had accidentally activated it, but he didn't think that likely. Those who had been affected then had all died instantly. Even if they hadn't, too much time had passed since for anyone to still need saving.

"You will no longer interfere with my work," the woman said, not responding to his words.

"We will, as long as you are harming others. As long as you are attacking mundanes," Alec returned. "We will not stand by idly. What were you doing in London back then? Were you trying to save a life then as well?" If this was what she was collecting the power from those attacks for, there was a chance that this same woman – this same being, since he didn't think any regular downworlder would be able to survive being even half as packed with power as she was – had been responsible for that other set of attacks as well.

A look of surprise crossed her features. "No," she said, her eyes narrowing as she focused on his face. "I was trying to create one. You're not as stupid as you look, Shadowhunter."

"Thank you, I think," Alec told her. "Did it work?"

"Not the way I planned."

She gestured, and through an opening in the wall that must have once held a door but was now closed merely by a sheet of power that blinked out of existence at her command, two demons entered the room. They were taller than humans or Nephilim usually were, their heads nearly brushing the ceiling. Leathery wings were folded against their backs. They placed clawed hands where a human's heart would have been as they bowed to the woman.

"Make sure he doesn’t run," she said.

A moment later, they were standing on either side of his, the smell of sulfur that they exuded enough to take away his breath for a moment. The barrier around the summoning circle was gone.

"Follow." She ordered.

A greater demon, Alec thought. That was what she had to be, to command these two so effortlessly.

The demon servants reached out to grab the bare skin of his upper arms.

He heard a sound like the hiss of a hot brand being pressed against flesh. The pain followed less than a heartbeat later, prompting a sharp intake of breath before he clenched his teeth.

"I'm coming," he snapped, fighting to keep his reaction to the pain under control. "No need to get rude."

They released him as he stepped forward, though they were ready to reach out again at once if he gave any sign of being uncooperative.

The burns on his arms throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

Alec hoped that his friends would be able to track him speedily. This wasn't going to be any fun.

*

Jace froze, an agonized sound escaping from his lips.

"Jace!" he heard Clary's voice filter through the red-hot pain that was shooting through his arms.

He shook his head to clear it, looking down at himself even though he knew it wasn't his own body that was hurting. "It's Alec." His voice sounded thin in his ears. The pain made him feel light-headed and nauseous. "Something's hurting him."

"Is he--?" Izzy began, her face several shades paler than it had been.

"Alive," Jace told her. "And it's … not gone, but it's stopped getting worse."

Clary had her hands raised, clearly wanting to touch Jace to make sure that _he_ was alright, and not daring to for fear of making anything worse. "What happened to him? What did it feel like?" she asked.

He leaned into her, taking strength from their connection to push the lingering pain to a corner of his mind where he could keep an eye on it without being dangerously distracted by it. He didn't want to answer those questions. He just wanted to forget that feeling.

Still, that wasn't an option. "I think something burned him," he said after a pause. "Here." He crossed his arms, lightly putting his hands against the sore spots, and strangely surprised that it didn't aggravate them. "We better hurry."

*

The demon woman had led him out of the tiled room, down a corridor and into a suite of rooms lavishly furnished and equipped. It was an accommodation fit for a prince.

As soon as he had thought that, he frowned. Where had that comparison come from? Maybe it was because Jack's status as a Dragon Prince had given him more exposure to the word in the last few months than he had had in his entire life before. It was, he found, a fitting comparison in any case.

They crossed the sitting room and entered a bedroom, no less luxurious. Even Magnus' grand silk and satin assembly paled by comparison with this.

A figure rested on the large bed, obscured by a green glow so opaque that he could only make out outlines beneath.

Alec knew what a stasis field was, but he had never seen one of such strength. Still, given her claim about saving a life, he knew that was what he had to be looking at. He dialed down his magic vision farther, unwilling to blink it off entirely. It was still an effort to see any details beyond the green.

If this was the prince, Alec decided, the woman would be the Queen. That was as good a way to refer to her in his mind as any right now. It seemed to go well with the subservient manner the other two demons exhibited towards her, too.

"Step closer," she said when he stopped. "Look at what he did!" She held out one hand, palm facing away from her.

The power streaming from it into the stasis field, through it and into the motionless body beneath left spots in his vision.

Much as he hated not having the warning against spells being worked around him, he did turn off his magic vision now. There simply was too much power flying around.

With the green shine gone, he could see the body, which looked like nothing that had any business being alive. Every inch of skin he could see was charred and burned, cracks glistening wetly here and there, scar tissue stretched tight and shiny in other places.

A swath of bandages was stretched across his chest, apparently in an attempt to cover the wound of Jace's dagger in his back - though the treatment could only be symbolic.

He felt is heart plummet as he understood.

"Jonathan."

"I see you recognize him," the Queen said.

"How could I not?" Alec returned, fighting to keep his voice from trembling. He knew Ithuriel had felt connected and obligated to Clary and Jace, who had been created with his blood. If this was the demon whose ichor had been used to create Jonathan, her wrath would probably be terrible.

Even as he thought it, he realized another thing: While they routinely spoke of demon ichor and angel blood, technically, both fluids should have been referred to by the former. _They really aren't much different_ , the realization shot through his head. _And it's been there all the time, but we've been taught to close our eyes to it._

Her hand plunged through the stasis field, gently stroking the side of that burned face.

If he hadn't known any better, he would have said that this demon woman showed some true affection. That she felt something akin to love for the twisted thing that Valentine's upbringing and years of torture had made of Jonathan.

And why, he asked himself, should he know any better? Why not assume that what he was seeing was exactly that – that somehow, she did love him – like the son she had called him?

The idea that a demon would be capable of any such feelings was blasphemous.

*

They had informed Magnus while they had still been on the way to the institute. They had sent a text message to their mother, telling her to call them as soon as she was in a safe place to do so. They didn't want her to hear about this on official channels, but neither could they simply call her on her Gale phone at the risk that the phone would consider the message important enough to ring even while she was in company.

She hadn't been, it seemed, since Jace's phone rang almost instantly.

At least some of the confidence Maryse exhibited when she assured them that Alec would surely be fine, that they would find a way to get him out of wherever he was, had to be an effort she made for their sake. Her offer to use the library of Alicante to see if she could find any information that would help them was something they gladly accepted. They didn't know what they would have done, had she offered to come and join them in New York.

"He must have put a charm on," Jace announced after a while, relief clear in his tone.

A mirroring sigh of relief ran through the room at that. It meant that Alec was well enough, and free enough, to heal himself.

The computer wasn't much help. Their first search brought up nothing to match the happenings of the day. Lindsay, Ian and Francesco joined them eventually, working on the same subject.

Izzy's phone buzzed. She glanced at it before turning it to let the others see.

The message, sent by Magnus, contained only two words. _Come over._

The three looked at each other, nodding to confirm.

They didn't even have the beginnings of a plan here. Though Jace had tried tracking a few more times, there had been no result. The thought of leaving New York – and thus Alec – behind was uncomfortable. But there wasn't any reason to believe that Alec even still was in New York. The _parabatai_ bond would work even if the two were on opposite sides of the globe. The magical phone, once it was back in Alec's possession, would connect them from anywhere.

If Magnus thought that Calgary had answers they needed, they were going to go.

"Back in a bit," they told their companions. "We need to check something out."

Barely waiting for an acknowledgement, they filed out of the room.

They had almost reached the front door when a voice behind them called them back. "Where do you think you are going?"

Izzy whirled, anger sparkling in her eyes as she rounded in on Lindsay. "Following an idea on Alec's whereabouts," she snarled. "Why aren't you at your post? You had your orders!"

"Right," Lindsay returned heatedly. "Searching the database for things that don't exist while you go off to do who knows what! Who knows if Alec even really disappeared or if this isn't just some sort of … of _plot_ on your end?" She was almost yelling at them, her words, tone and volume all drawing attention.

"We don't have the time for this," Jace said, but Izzy had already spun on her heel and retraced her steps to Lindsay.

"He's right. We don't have the time to debate," she told the other woman. "Come. I'll show you something. That'll be faster."

She strode off back into the institute, Lindsay running a few steps to catch up.

Jace and Clary followed, not quite certain what their friend was planning, but trusting that Izzy knew what she was doing.


	23. Chapter 23

They ended up in Alec's room, where Izzy quickly and efficiently collected the weapons they had dropped off earlier, grabbed the charmed penny from the mini fridge and fished the Gale quilt off the bed, folding it so she could drape it over her arm.

"See these things?" she asked the other woman, who was looking on in some confusion.

Lindsay nodded.

"Come along."

Without checking to see if Lindsay followed, Izzy made her way into Alec's bathroom. As far as any of them knew, they were at least not being spied on in there – though they were sure that it would have drawn attention sooner or later, had they chosen to meet up in one of their bathrooms in force.

"What are you trying to show me?" Lindsay asked, her voice impatient. "Look, this better be good or I'm going to—"

Izzy cut her off. "See that?" she pointed up towards the ceiling, causing Lindsay to automatically follow her indication to check.

The moment she did so, Izzy put her other hand on Lindsay's, her fingers moving quickly in the lines of a sleep charm.

Clary caught the woman as she fell, with not even the time to spare to look surprised, breaking her fall and lowering her slowly to the ground.

After a second's hesitation, she added another charm of her own. Two would hopefully keep her out for longer.

Luckily, the things that were dearest to them had been taken to Calgary weeks ago. It had saved them both from being damaged in the recent vandalism and made it that much easier for them to grab all they needed from their own rooms now. With their weapons already on their bodies, both Izzy and Jace quickly grabbed their quilts and pennies before joining Clary in her room.

*

The canvas she had worked on the day of the attack in the greenhouse was back on an easel. It hadn't made it through the search entirely unharmed, but she figured it would do.

"Jace." Izzy's gaze went up to the ceiling, and he understood what she wanted him to do.

He had rarely agreed with a plan any more than he did with this one. The mere thought of spending another night under this roof made every fiber of his body protest. There was no need to refrain from doing anything that would rouse even more suspicion, because once they walked through that door today – or that picture, as the case might be – , they weren't going to come back.

The demon issue of New York, if it didn't resolve itself if – when – they got to Alec, would have to be someone else's worry.

With a twist of his mind, he deactivated every single rune in the room, rendering any piece of equipment running on angelic power useless.

The moment Jace confirmed that the cameras were off, Clary pulled her painting from its wooden frame and placed it against a wall.

"Keep your head down," she warned Jace, the tallest of them, as she took hold of his and Izzy's hands and stepped forward into the scenery.

*

The room she had left him in must have once been the en-suit bathroom. Now, it was reminiscent of the room he had been summoned to, the walls tiled ceiling-high in a light blue color, while the floor sported a darker blue, though any sort of fixture that had once been installed here had been removed.

Still as naked as the day he'd been born, Alec was sitting in a corner of that empty blue box, his back against the wall and his knees drawn up. A set of charms had taken care of the burns on his arms and left his mind free to contemplate his situation.

The Queen hadn't killed him right away, so she probably thought he had something that could help her – and it had to go beyond stopping their group from further interfering with the demon attacks.

While he was starting to wrap his mind around the idea that she was truly attached to Jonathan – and he had to admit that he was finding it harder to imagine that someone would feel that way about that man, after all that he had done, than that a demon could be capable of any sort of love – he didn't think that she was sparing him out of a wish to avoid needless slaughter and suffering. If that had been part of her repertoire, surely she wouldn't have staged those attacks.

He assumed that the room had once had a window, but it had vanished along with everything else. With no way to tell how much time had passed, he realized quickly that he would have to do something to keep his mind occupied if he didn't want to betray signs of anxiety anytime soon.

Without turning his eyes from the door, he started going through the runes he knew. First those from the Gray Book that were officially accessible to them, then through what he remembered of the ones they had stolen from the other sections. Once done with those – and after scolding himself for a moment for the small number of those extra runes that he had memorized – he continued with the charms the Gales had taught them that they hadn't found a rune equivalent for. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to be helpful in his current situation.

What he would have liked would have been a charm that teleported him away. Clary's portal rune would have done nicely, but it seemed that none of them had the ability to channel as much power as was needed for that. It had to be an extra boost from her angel blood.

Or maybe it was just that the inability to create portals was too deeply ingrained in their minds still to allow them to use that charm.

No one thought to feed him or to even bring him something to drink, and since the water taps hadn't survived the refurnishing either, he realized that he would have been in for a very uncomfortable night if he had still needed to use his stele.

Once he had put on a nourishment charm, he spent a moment staring at the shining outlines.

Then, coming to a decision, he moved to the door, marking the floor in front of it with an alarm charm that would certainly wake him up if anyone entered the room. The mattress charm that had seen plenty of use while they'd been travelling through the alternate dimension served him well here as well, turning the cold, hard floor into a comfortable surface to lie on.

He wasn't sure if sleep would come, but whatever the Queen had in store for him, he didn't want to have to face it weakened by exhaustion.

_Calgary_

The large library in the basement of the manor house on Mount Royal had helped them once before.

It was where they gathered now as well, supplied with a steady stream of pies, toast and fried sausages from above.

Jace and Melissa were sitting on the floor, reproducing the markings they had used to track the demon attacks in New York on a fresh map from the photographs he had on his phone while everyone else was picking the volumes that seemed the most promising to them.

Several whiteboards had been put up, ready for anyone to put down what thoughts they had on the matter at hand. They were labeled "Demon base", "Disappearance" and "Misc." respectively.

"I don't know a spell that would portal anyone somewhere but leave their clothes behind," Magnus was just explaining. "The portal grips from the outside, so it takes anything that's on you along." Though outwardly calm, it was clear to his friends that the warlock was distressed. There had already been a few moments when they had met his eyes and seen golden irises look back at them.

"Anything with skin contact comes along through the Wood, too," Charlie pointed out.

"And we can safely assume that he wasn't dematerialized," Sebastian added. "Because he couldn't have been injured then."

"Glad to know the pain was good for something," Jace noted without looking up from his work.

Magnus sighed. "I know only of one way to transport literally nothing but the target."

All eyes were on him immediately.

"What is that?" Izzy wanted to know. She didn’t care about how demanding her tone sounded.

"Summoning." Magnus paused, not for dramatic effect but because he was clearly fighting to find the right words. "And if someone who is capable of summoning a Shadowhunter is involved in this, we probably need results very quickly."

"How's that?" Clary asked, just as Jace said: "But when you summoned Azazel, he appeared fully dressed."

"That's because how you see a demon in this dimension isn't what they actually look like," Magnus answered the second comment first. "It's an image they want you to see. The clothes are part of that image. And that is not a kind of summoning any warlock would be capable of."

"Alright." Aline had gotten up and walked over to the Disappearance whiteboard to put down _Likely summoned_. "Who can do it?"

Magnus took a deep breath. "To my knowledge? Only the most powerful of demons. I can think of three, maybe four. My own father, for one. Lilith, of course."

"Lilith?" Clary asked, sounding utterly confused.

"The Queen of Demons," Magnus told her. "Also called the Mother of Demons. In legend, she was Adam's first wife."

"And all the legends are true?" Clary asked.

"That one, probably not," he returned. "But she does seem to rule demonkind."

Izzy had gone over to the Demon whiteboard. "She'd have the power to command the attacks we've seen?"

Magnus nodded. "Certainly."

The young woman wrote _Lilith?_ on the board before returning to the shelf she had been perusing.

Christopher wordlessly walked over and wiped away the question mark.

Turning back to see what was going on, Izzy frowned. "Chris? What makes you so certain?"

He looked like the epitome of uncomfortable, standing under the bright light of the ceiling lamp that made his silvery blond hair look white and hugging himself as if suddenly cold. "Because she's my… my demon mother? Her blood runs in my veins. She's the demon whose blood Valentine took for his plans." He refused to meet anyone's eyes. "It connects her to your Jonathan, too. You were saying your demon attacks might have to do with necromancy. Well…"

Magnus had gone white as a sheet at the disclosure. Everyone who noticed his reaction tensed.

"We better hurry up about finding out where she's holed up then," Izzy determined, unwilling to accept the wider implications her mind tried to force at her at the thought. "She has wards up that Charlie can't breach. Is there any way we can find those wards?"

 

April 28th, 2017

They had broken up the assembly well after midnight, resolving to get a few hours of sleep and return to work, hopefully with a fresh eye and an alert mind.

Once again, Clary had far less trouble falling asleep than Jace did.

He forced his body to relax. Un-knotting his muscles was far easier than un-knotting his mind.

He counted seconds as he inhaled and exhaled, falling into a rhythm that would hopefully soon bring sleep. The _parabatai_ bond was reassuringly calm and strong, apparently not weakened by the wards that prevented Charlie from following Alec's Song.

Alec didn't seem particularly distressed anymore. If anything, Jace thought he felt bored.

He blinked, and startled at the sight of blue before his eyes. Instead of the bedroom he shared with Clary, he was looking … at a tiled wall?

"Jace?" That was Alec's voice, sounding right by his ear.

"Yes," he answered before he could think about it. "Are you alright?"

His field of vision shifted as if he was sitting up, though he knew he hadn't moved.

"Where are you?" Alec was asking.

"In bed," he replied. "At home. In Calgary."

"Why are you sleeping in Calgary?"

That made him shake his head mentally. If that was Alec's greatest problem right now, things couldn't be too dire.

"We left New York and we're not going back. Where are _you_?"

He could sense no anger through the bond. If anything, Alec seemed to approve.

The answer was less satisfactory. "I don't know. I haven't seen a window since I arrived."

While reasonably sure that he was dreaming, Jace couldn't help but remember the last night's moment of feeling Alec in his head. On the off chance that this was, in fact, real, and not knowing how much time they would have if it was, he summarized their findings: "We think you were summoned by a greater demon, which we suspect is Lilith. She's connected to Jonathan."

Surprise registered through their bond.

"Good work," Alec said. "And spot on. Didn't know her name – she didn't introduce herself. But she has Jonathan. She's keeping him in stasis. Said she wants to save his life." He hesitated. "Jace… I think she really loves him like a son."

"He kind of is." Jace filed the rest of the information away. He'd think about the idea that a demon of Lilith's caliber could exhibit something Alec would parse as love another time. "Valentine used her blood to create Jonathan – and Chris. Chris didn't know how he got it."

"She said she was trying to create life when she attacked London," Alec informed him.

He didn't need to continue. The implications were clear enough for Jace. If Valentine had somehow learned of her agenda, and offered her a deal, the attacks had, indeed, stopped through his doing – because he had offered her an easier way to get the same result.

Thinking that thought through distracted him, to the point where he suddenly found himself alone in his mind, no trace of Alec remaining. Though he tried to re-establish the contact, focusing on their bond and trying to slip back into the state of mind he had held a few moments before, he got nowhere.

Or had he been dreaming and just woken up? He wished he had a way to be certain.

Either way, and at the risk of being laughed at by everyone, he resolved to share his experience, and the information he had just gained. His pride wasn't worth keeping back potentially relevant information. He'd learned that much in the last months.

 

_New York_

He still wasn't sure what to make of his nightly conversation with Jace.

It couldn't possibly be that being locked in a small room on his own was already driving him so crazy for human contact that he was making things up in his mind, could it? It certainly had sounded like Jace. What he'd said had made sense.

And there'd been that other moment the night before, when he had thought he had suddenly found himself in Jace's head.

No, come to think of it, there might have been an incident before that even – back at Jack's party, when they'd been sitting by the camp fire. What if he hadn't made up Jace's scolding about the falcon?

What if he'd heard what his _parabatai_ was thinking?

That was silly, of course. Their bond had never been telepathic.

 _But you may have changed it_ , a small idea wormed its way into his brain. _How do you know that repeating the ritual didn't affect you? Or the charm. Or just renewing your bond after you got rid of the damage your steles did to you?_

Well, there was one thing he could do in any case to test the truth of what he had learned that night. He just needed to talk to the Queen for it.

He didn't have to wait for long.

The door opened, and he looked up from where he was sitting in his corner. Both the alarm and the mattress charm were gone. He had erased them as soon as he had decided that he was finished sleeping. Unless the Queen – Lilith – was scrying on him, she didn't know what was going on inside his bathroom cell. If there was one good thing about bare walls, it was that there was no way there could be a hidden camera installed.

She was standing in the doorway, flanked by her two dark-winged minions.

"Did you sleep?" she asked without further preamble.

Alec looked up at her without moving to rise. "Some," he allowed.

"Good," she said. "I need you strong."

For what, she didn't say, and Alec didn't ask. A motion of her hand brought one of her demon servants into the room. A tray was put down next to the naked man. It held a pitcher with water, a plastic cup and a plastic plate with three sandwiches.

"Eat," she said.

"I'm not hungry," Alec claimed. He wasn't. The nourishment charm had taken care of that. He wasn't planning to ingest anything offered to him from sources unknown.

" _Eat_ ," she repeated. "I cannot have you faint on me. You will help me boost my son's life force until I can properly wake him."

Alec had no intention of fainting, but he still ignored the tray. "Lilith," he said slowly, "I don't think that is going to happen."

Her eyes widened for a moment at the name. "When did you work that out?" she asked, curiosity clear in her tone.

He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Tonight, while I was resting. I do not need your food." He pushed the tray a small distance away from him.

"You will eat it anyway." Her words sounded neutral, but something about her presence had changed. "Or I will have my servant feed you."

The lesser demon came closer again, the sulfuric smell enough to kill any appetite he could have had. He could feel the heat radiating from those clawed hands and flinched involuntarily before they touched him. "Alright!"

He reached for the pitcher first, pouring himself a cup of water, the movement obscuring his other hand as he drew an anti-venom charm on his skin as a precaution. It was the best he could do, since it was clear that his choice was between eating or being forced to eat and collect another few burns in the process. If he was going to have food forced into his body anyway, he could as well do so without the added pain.

"You have fifteen minutes," she said. "I expect that plate to be empty when I return."

 

_Calgary_

They had portaled into the library, coffee cups still in hand, only to find that they weren't even the first to arrive there.

Bea was sitting on the plush sofa, her phone on her ear, her tone clipped and impatient. "It doesn't matter, Jane!" She was just saying as they put down their drinks on a low table to take up where they had left off the night before. "It's not your personal possession and I need to borrow it. Charlotte will be over to collect in thirty minutes, and you better not give her any trouble for it!"

Apparently, she didn't expect – or care for – the answer, since she snapped her phone shut the moment the last syllable had left her mouth.

Footsteps descending the stairs preceded another arrival.

"Who is Jane?" Jace asked as soon as Lucy and Rayne, two of the permanent residents of this building, came into view. They were bringing down fresh pies and pitchers of lemonade to supplement the hot beverages already there.

"Back East, she's for the family what Bea is here," Lucy said. "Officially, the Aunties know no hierarchy, but there's always one who takes the lead. Jane's still a little peeved that Bea slid into that position instead of serving as her eyes and ears and reporting back to her. She should have known better…"

"She did know better," Auntie Bea declared. "She's just too stubborn to admit it."

With that, she left the room, presumably to find a calmer place to call Charlie.

"I need to tell you about something that happened last night… I think…" Jace began.

"You think it happened, or you think you need to tell us?" Izzy wanted to know. She looked only slightly put off that Jace hadn't mentioned it before. They had all fallen out of bed less than half an hour ago, and if it was something everyone should hear, it was sensible to wait until everyone was together.

"The first," he clarified. "It might still have been some really odd dream. I'm –" He broke off, his right hand going reflexively to his chest, the left one cradling it protectively. "Alec," he said, though the others could guess as much. "He's hurting again, but it's different this time."

 

_New York_

Once the door had been closed again, Alec had made quick work of the sandwiches, using the incineration charm the Gales used to burn things that had come into contact with their blood to reduce them to the smallest amount of fine dark-grey ashes.

The water he had sampled while Lilith had still been watching had tasted clean enough, and didn't seem to have any effect he could discern other than refreshing him. He sketched a cleansing charm on the cup for good measure and drank it, unsure of how else to get rid of it without it being noticed.

Of course, that meant that soon enough, there would be a time where he needed one of the facilities this room didn't sport.

He refused to think about that right now.

The satisfied look Lilith cast at the empty tray when she returned told him that she wasn't scrying on him – at least not permanently. He filed that away as positive.

"Come out here," she said, her voice mild, before stepping away from the open door.

Hesitating only a little – there was no point in delaying the inevitable – he left his prison.

A chair with broad arm-rests had been added to the bedroom, placed facing the bed with the burned, stabbed body.

Lilith was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand stroking Jonathan's as if there was even the slightest chance that he would take comfort from her touch.

If he allowed that she knew what it was to love a child, and if he allowed that Jonathan was the target of her motherly affection, Alec mused, then how could she have allowed his torture the way it had happened?

He blinked in confusion, trying to reconcile the different concepts in his mind.

Maybe her idea of love was so utterly different from theirs that he could only recognize bits and pieces of it, her attitude otherwise so foreign that he didn't stand a chance at making it intelligible to his mind.

"Sit," Lilith said, inviting him to the chair with a gesture.

When he didn't move to do as he was told immediately, one of the servants, waiting tucked away against a wall, slid forward.

Understanding that, once again, he had the choice to obey or be forced to obey and suffering for it, Alec took the chair. One sweeping glance of the room had confirmed the conclusion he had come to when he had gone through everything he had seen the day before in his mind: lavish as the room looked, there was literally nothing he could easily turn into a weapon. The furniture looked fused to the floor. Even the base of each chair leg had been melted into the parquet, forming an inseparable connection. What decorations there were were either flimsy, not fit for defense or attack, or rendered otherwise useless.

He wasn't weaponless. He still had his body. But there were three of them, and only one of him, and he had to wait for a better opportunity to attempt an escape.

Sitting down, he found quickly, was a mistake.

Something heavy settled on him, and a quick check of his magic vision told him that a sheet of green had descended onto him.

At a snap of her fingers, another dark figure parted from the shadows against one wall. He would have sworn on anything that there had been no one there before.

There was, he found, no one there now either. It was a shadow, given humanoid shape, approaching soundlessly, wordlessly and without casting any shadow of its own under the glare of the overhead lamps.

Unable to move, Alec could only watch as it closed the distance between them, where it stopped motionless and still again, an oddly shaped mass of blackness against the room.

She nodded regally at it, and the shadow leaned forward, bending slightly.

Its touch felt neither hot nor cold, strangely there-yet-not-there. He couldn't have phrased a proper description of it if his life had depended on it. The lightless face had no features, though somehow, Alec could have sworn that it was smiling down at him as it arranged his hand on the broad arm-rest – able to move his limbs easily in spite of the magical binding that prevented him from doing the same, and, without missing a beat or exhibiting any sign of excitement or effort, took a hold of the little finger of his right hand and snapped it in a single deft motion.

 

_Calgary_

Jace hissed at the renewed pain in his hand as he forced his fingers to open and his body to acknowledge that the injury wasn't his.

Auntie Carmen scowled at him. "Just go and block that bond, Jace."

"No!" He shot back, more forcefully than he had intended to. He had dialed it down as far as he dared, but he wasn't going to block it entirely. "I'm not cutting off Alec now. I need to know what's going on with him."

"What's going on is that someone is torturing him and you need to be able to focus on finding out where we might find him," the old woman pointed out.

"Not cutting him off!" Jace repeated. "I'm _fine_."

It took another few moments before he realized that for once, she hadn't called him Jonathan.

He looked over at her, but Carmen already had her nose back in her book.

"How many are those?" Graham asked, his voice sympathetic.

"Three on the right, two on the left," Jace replied immediately. Whoever was tormenting Alec knew exactly what they were doing to draw it out. From the way it felt to him, they broke one finger at a time, then spent half an hour squeezing and wiggling it to maximize the pain, before moving on to the next.

He was about ready to demand that Clary take him back to New York so he could comb the city street by street, trying to follow their changed bond. The one thing that kept him from it was that they still weren't even sure that Alec was being kept in New York.

Magnus and Trisha were bent over a small table together. They were trying every approach they knew to get Alec into the focus of a scrying object. They had even gone so far as to start looking for a way to simply summon him back to them, but that plan was doomed to fail from the beginning – under the Gale influence, like all of them Alec had started to painstakingly destroy anything that could be used for that kind of work.

Several sets of steps descended the stairs, the second much heavier than the first and almost concealing it.

A moment later, Elessar entered the room, his bodyguard at his shoulder.

"I have a few of my people looking from the UnderRealm," the Seelie prince announced. "Can't promise you we'll find anything more than you do – she's crazy powerful. Worse than that general we had last year."

"Thank you," Izzy said, nodding at him. "We appreciate the effort." She rubbed her eyes, fatigue evident again in her face. In spite of the safety of their home and the charmed quilt, she hadn't slept particularly well – just like everyone else in their group.

Gary walked over to study the map of New York. Since there was literally no free wall space in the room, it had been tacked to a large piece of cardboard and mounted on one of Clary's easels.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Overview of the demon attacks in New York," Izzy replied. "Probably not very helpful since they're all over the place, but we wanted everything we have in one spot."

The Glashtyn frowned, his hand going to the pencil lying on the small horizontal wooden board below the map, picking it up but not doing anything with it.

"Where did they go?" he asked.

Izzy gave him a confused look. "What? Where did who go?"

"Your demons. Did you kill all of them every time? If not, where did they go?" he was fiddling with the implement now, as if impatient for something to write.

"We don't know," Clary piped up. "We tried to tag some so we could follow them, but it always failed one way or the other."

Gary stood silent for another moment, glancing at Elessar and apparently not finding there what he was looking for.

"But where did they _go_?" he asked again. He placed the tip of the pencil against one of the circled spots. "Here. This one. Were any demons left?"

Jace and Izzy got up from their seats, walking over to join him. Clary followed.

"I don't know," Jace said when he could identify which attack exactly he had chosen. "That wasn't one of ours."

"Which ones were?"

Izzy's hand shot forward, tapping the attacks they had had a hand in defending against.

Gary placed the pencil tip on the first of them. "Demons left?" he asked.

"Yes." Izzy said. "Two of them."

"Where did they go?"

That question again. She was about to shrug at him when he raised his hands. "Skvaders are tasty, but they're also quite small and don't make a good meal on their own. Especially not if you have foals to feed. So what you do is, you scare them up and make them run back to their lair. Except you're going to lose them in the underbrush at some point, so what you do is that you have the herd spread out and scare them up all around the place. Then you set off in the direction they ran and sooner or later you'll all meet up in one area. Then you spread out and comb the ground for burrows."

They looked at each other, then at him. Then at the map.

He tapped the pencil against the paper.

"That way," Izzy said, pointing.

Gary left a generous pencil stroke across the map, then turned it into an arrow. "Next?" he asked.

Within minutes, they had drawn in the flight trajectories of the demons they knew about. The lines didn't exactly intersect in the same place, but intersect they did.

Drawing a circle around the crossing points, Gary turned back to them with a satisfied air. "There's your burrow – somewhere in here."

While still encompassing several blocks, the new mark enclosed an area that would be far easier to canvas than all of New York. Just as Jace found himself fervently hoping that it would, indeed, hold whatever lair the demons belonged to, and that that would be where they would find Alec, a new stab of pain shot through his hand – different this time and focused on the tip of his thumb. He grimaced, steeled himself for the reinforced flow of pain that was surely about to hit him, and opened the _parabatai_ bond wide.

 _Hold out, Alec_ , he thought furiously, trying to force his thoughts down that link. _We'll get you out. We're on our way._

He would have prayed that that wasn't a lie, but he had no one left to direct a prayer to anymore.


	24. Chapter 24

_New York_

The shadow had frozen at a sign from Lilith, giving Alec a small reprieve. He refused to look at his hands. As long as he didn't see how badly his fingers were broken, he could talk himself into believing it wasn't so terrible.

Lilith hadn't moved from her place at Jonathan's bedside all this time – and he was sure that hours must have passed since she had magically tied him to that chair. Looking for something – anything – to fix his mind on, he had managed to watch through his magic vision how she channeled the pain he felt and turned it into raw power that she fed into the near-dead body by her side.

When she looked at him, bound and in pain, fighting to remain silent and not give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream on top of everything else, he saw no hatred in her eyes. That made it worse, in a way.

If she'd looked at him with malice, with any sort of indication that she was enjoying the condition he was put in, he could have used that, fixed it in his mind and focused on it as a way to fight the pain.

Her features had remained neutral for the greatest part, though, except when she was focusing on Jonathan. Just once, when she had glanced over at him, he had seen a fleeting change in her face that was so unlikely that he spent the next minutes pondering it, his mind clamping down on it to blot out the agony in his hands.

In a human, he would have called that expression one of gratitude.

And maybe she was thankful indeed, to have gotten her hands on someone who could supply energy she used to feed her son.

She rose now, walking over and rounding him once. It took an exercise of will not to try to twist to follow her with his eyes.

"Is there anything you need?" She asked him, her voice neutral. "Would you like me to send my servants for lunch?"

He almost laughed at that. The situation was too absurd. She had just spent the morning supervising his torture, and there she was now, offering him a meal as if they had just come together for a work meeting or something. He guessed he had to commend the shadow on being efficient: he still had half his fingers left unhurt. Of course, all that meant was that that thing would be able to draw out the experience for quite a long time.

It took a moment before Alec had unclenched his jaw enough to speak. "My freedom," he said then. His voice sounded strange to him. He was talking around the pain that was swelling and ebbing in his mistreated hands even now that no one was manipulating the broken digits anymore.

She didn't even seem to listen. "You heal so fast," she noted. Standing behind him, she was outside his field of vision. Her touch, cool and almost gentle, against his upper arm came as a surprise that made him draw in a sharp breath, even though the contact wasn't painful.

Alec closed his eyes against the touch. In a way, it felt worse than the torture had, even though there was no discomfort involved.

"You heal so fast," she mused. "Can you heal your hands?"

"No," Alec said, truthfully. He couldn't apply a charm while he didn't have his hands free, and he didn't think he was going to be able to set the bones anyway.

"I want you to," she said, her tone insistent. "We can start over then. We'll never need to run out…"

He took a slow breath, steeling himself for a reaction. "I can't," he insisted. "It doesn't work on bones."

"But you should have said that right away," Lilith informed him in a mildly disapproving tone. "Really now…"

"I didn't know it was relevant." The words were out before he could stop himself, and they'd come out far more sharply than it was probably wise to talk to one's jailor.

She actually sounded satisfied by his answer. "But now you know." Moving on, she completed her circle before she returned to her post on the bed. "If you're really sure that you don't need anything else, we'll continue. But no more broken bones."

That would have been a lot more reassuring if he hadn't been certain that she would find a different way to cause pain for him.

He had expected the shadow to turn from a frozen patch of darkness back into a moving thing next. Lilith still seemed to hesitate, though.

"How long do you think he will take?" she asked curiously.

"He?" Alec returned. Was she asking for his assessment of how long the shadow would go on torturing him? How long it would take to break him? To fuel up Jonathan?

"Your brother," Lilith clarified. "How long until he comes to join us?"

"What do you want with Jace?" He had blurted it out before he could stop himself. His hands tried to clench at the thought, and it was probably all for the best that they were still under the magical fetters. He would have hurt himself anew without any help from the shadow otherwise.

"I need him." Lilith stroked her hand over Jonathan's head as if he had hair that she could tousle. Alec inwardly winced at the thought of how that touch had to feel on burnt flesh. "He tried to kill my boy. He will donate his body so I can fix him."

Jace would do no such thing if Alec had any way to prevent it. "He knows better than to come after me," he said. "You're not getting your hands on him."

Her smile was enigmatic as she raised a finger of the hand that wasn't busy with Jonathan and pointed.

Now the shadow did spring back to life.

"No bones," Lilith repeated. "Take that."

A side table blinked into being. It was bare, save for a small tool on its surface.

Without showing any emotion at the new command, the shadow reached for it, probing it briefly against the pad of one lightless finger.

Alec refused to look as the tool approached his hand. If he saw what was about it happen, it would be all the worse for the anticipation…

It wasn't enough to contain the agonized sound that escaped from his lips when the tip of a sharp blade slid under the fingernail of his left thumb, probing slowly, moving back and forth, digging deeper bit by bit.

The pain was blinding. He tasted blood after another moment. Great – now he had bitten his own tongue in an attempt not to scream. He tried to focus on the metallic note in his mouth. Something, anything other than the hot agony in his hand…

 _Hold out, Alec_ , Jace's voice filtered through. _We'll get you out. We're on our way._

 _NO!_ In his mind, Alec was screaming, _Stay away, Jace! She won't kill me - She wants you!_

But Jace wouldn't, of course. He wouldn't care what happened to him if it spared Alec further suffering.

Fighting to keep his focus through the pain, Alec started to shut down their bond with a twist of his mind.

 _Don't you dare!_ Jace's voice snarled at him. _Don't you_ dare _block that bond, Alec! We're in this together and we'll see it through together_.

*

They set up their base in a mundane café that was filled to capacity once their group had filed in and spread out across the small round tables.

Charlie, humming to herself, walked to the counter to request a moment with the manager.

She was back before the others had finished laying out their maps and placing orders to appease the staff.

"They're happy to let us run our detective game from here," she announced with a bright smile. Her hair seemed excited at the prospect of finally getting things done. Several strands changed color from blue to red to green and back as she spoke.

"You might want to do something about that before the mundanes notice," Izzy suggested, indicating her own hair.

The Bard frowned, reaching up to stroke the color away.

Aline had a sheet of paper out and was just writing down the teams they had formed, ready to assign one area of their marked space to each of them.

Jace, Izzy, Clary and Magnus would only go out shrouded in their Seelie cloaks. If either of those Nephilim was spotted by a patrol, they'd be in trouble. Magnus needed to avoid discovery by the local warlocks just the same.

Elessar had offered to lend the others cloaks as well, though most of them had declined. Chris' face wasn't known to anyone. Hodge was considered dead, and with a glamor to conceal the runes visible over his clothes, he would be able to pass easily enough as a mundane who just so happened to have an uncanny resemblance to a certain disgraced Shadowhunter.

Jace looked around their group. The four of them would have preferred to do this alone, without endangering any of their friends. They had quickly been told – and in no uncertain terms, - that that was not an option. Though he didn't like to admit it, it was a relief to see them all there. They had a small army at their disposal.

Studying his hand, once again surprised to see that it wasn't broken and bloody, he hoped that it would be enough.

It had to be.

"Alright," he said. "Can we get going?"

Aline was about to answer when the door opened again, admitting two more additions to their group.

"Are we late?" Simon asked, not even out of breath. Maia by his side showed more signs of physical effort. They had clearly run some, if not most of the way to join them. "We're here to help!"

Jace frowned at the Daylighter. "How did you even know we're here?" he wanted to know.

"Here in New York, or here in this place?" Simon shot back. "Clary texted me before you left, and again after you picked a spot. Will you take our help, or do we need to go and try on our own?"

"We take any help we can get," Izzy said, looking at Aline for confirmation. She was Alec's second in command in Calgary after all, and as such rightfully in charge of coordinating this operation.

The other woman nodded. "Absolutely. I'm just not sure where to assign you…"

Maia was visibly wrestling with herself for a moment before she spoke. "If you can find me a place to change… I can try to sniff for a demon scent. Wolf noses are better than human ones for that."

*

Alec was just finding out for how long exactly it was possible to wiggle a small blade under a person's fingernail without actually detaching the nail. He might have been impressed if it hadn't been quite so painful.

They had reached the point where he had stopped trying to keep his lips closed and his face stoic. There was no point to it either. Lilith didn't take any pleasure from the agonized sounds that escaped him. She wasn't torturing him to break him, or to gain information. The pain itself was the only thing she cared about.

He still wanted to clamp down on his bond to Jace, to spare his _parabatai_ the pain at least. After what Lilith had said, the last thing he wanted was for Jace to come and find him here. It would be just like him to actually hand himself over to the Demon Queen in order to spare Alec more suffering.

He had to trust that that wouldn't happen. There had to be a way to get through this, and out the other side, with all of them intact and well.

The last time he had tried to at least dial down the bond a little, Jace had slipped into his mind again immediately. It had felt as if his brother had been holding on for dear life inside his head. It had taken him a while to convince his _parabatai_ that he wasn't going to shut him out, and it had distracted him enough to draw Lilith's attention.

Focusing on the bond and wishing nothing more than to escape from the current torture was enough to send him down their link. If – no, when – he got out of this, they would have to put in some time to learn to manage that new connection they had.

Alec blinked, and found himself looking out of Jace's eyes. It seemed that his friends were just departing another mundane location. Jace turned to Izzy, who returned a grim, determined look.

"Alec's here." Jace's voice sounded odd through his own ears.

"I hope so," Izzy returned.

Jace shook his head. It was a disorienting experience if one wasn't the one in control of the body, as Alec found.

"No. He's right _here._ " Jace tapped his temple. "He's watching us."

"Oh." Izzy sketched a salute in Jace's direction. "No worries, big brother. We've got this. We'll find you."

He sincerely hoped she was as confident in that as she sounded. As Jace turned, Alec took in the group that had assembled. Gales. Nephilim. Magnus, magic already in his grip. A dragon. Simon. His _parabatai_ looked down, showing him the wolf among them, too.

As they set out, Alec heard the sound of wings descending and felt the echo of the bird settling on his arm. They'd brought the falcons then, which would allow them to scout from the air.

A hot lance of pain shot through the tip of the last as-yet uninjured finger of his left hand, drawing him back into his own body. He heard his moan before he had fully settled. Despite the pain, Alec felt a ghost of a smile on his lips. This wasn't going to take forever – and with the group setting out to find him, there would be no risk that Jace would be given the opportunity to sacrifice himself.

*

They searched their assigned sectors methodically, looking out for any sign of demon activity, any indication that there was anything at all amiss. They watched mundane behavior, scanned for heat signatures, and sent their birds out every once in a while to take a look from above to see if they could spot any place that people avoided more than others.

Eventually, it was Maia who picked up a trail.

Weaving back and forth across the street, her nose alternatingly in the air and close to the ground, she tried to find a method that best allowed her to track scents. She wasn't a hunting dog. She knew Luke had followed prey in wolf shape before, but the only time she had seen that had been when he had been devastated by Jocelyn's death and unable to control his change.

Using her wolf body deliberately in this manner felt strange.

She wondered what Rose or Peter would have done in her place – or, she assumed, Cloud and Storm. They never used the same names for their human and wolf shapes.

Suddenly, she froze, recoiling from a stink that assaulted her sensitive nose so hard she sat down on her hind legs. She sneezed to clear her nostrils, though with limited success.

The others stooped to look at her, and she realized that there was one complication they hadn't considered before: She couldn't tell them what she had discovered unless she changed, in which case she would be standing in the street stark naked, in the middle of the day.

"Maia? Did you find something?" Simon had come over. She looked up at him and nodded her head. Hearing her name while seeing the world as a wolf felt strange. She was Maia, of course, and yet not. From the description the two had given her, the difference was greater for Rose and Peter, but it was clear enough for her to consider for a moment that maybe she should pick a fur name as well.

"Demons?" Jace asked.

She nodded again, steeling herself for the worsening stink as she took a few slow, deliberate steps in the direction of the trail. A look back over her shoulder told her that the others had taken the hint and were following.

She fell into a trot.

*

At some point during the torture session, Alec had lost control of his bladder and bowels. While the shadow had been unimpressed, Lilith had apparently not approved of the smell, and banished the mess with a wave of her hand.

It didn't change the fact that Alec was feeling filthy and longing for a bath in addition to wanting the pain in his hands to stop.

With Jonathan apparently fuelled up with all the power his mangled body could hold for now, she had had her servants escort Alec back to his bathroom cell. He was feeling wobbly with pain and unsteady on his feet, which had earned him an extra set of burns on his arms when the two demons had reached out to steady him. He had screamed then, the new pain too much to bear in addition to the agony already emanating from his hands. No matter how much he tried to keep them steady, every step sent a new lance of white-hot fire all the way to his shoulders.

When they pushed him into the room, leaving another set of blisters on his naked back, it was all he could do not to stumble and fall.

He let himself sink to the floor with his back against the wall, trying to convince himself that the cold tile against his skin was soothing that last burn.

"Heal your hands," Lilith advised. "Tomorrow is another day."

Another day of what, he didn't need to ask.

He hadn't moved from his position yet, his knees dawn up, head hanging and hands held awkwardly away from him, when the door opened again.

One of the demon minions entered, carrying another tray like the one he had received that morning.

Sight of the water made him realize just how thirsty he was. The liquid might just as well have been in a different universe, however. He might have been able to grasp the plastic cup between the heels of his hands to drink, but there was no way his fingers would lift that pitcher and fill the smaller vessel.

He allowed himself a sigh that turned into something like a sob. His friends were on a trail, but had been thrown off a couple of times. They were working their way steadily closer to where he was, but there was no telling if Lilith wouldn't change her mind about waiting for the next day. What if she was only waiting for him to apply healing charms so she could let the shadow continue its ministrations?

Eventually, he cautiously dipped a finger into the pitcher and drew a nourishment charm on his skin, trying to put as little pressure on the tip as he could.

It was the thought of Jace, who still insisted on keeping their bond open, who had mentally held him through the worst of the torment and promised him they'd be with him soon, that made him add healing charms to his unbroken fingers, then the burns on his arms. He couldn't reach the blistered spot on his back well enough to put another one there. At least he had reduced the sources of distraction to his _parabatai_ now, he told himself.

With the pain gone from half his fingers, he awkwardly managed to pour himself some water. It had a metallic tang to it. Apparently, he had left enough of his blood in it earlier to give it a distinctive taste.

He sketched on an anti-venom charm just in case before he incinerated the sandwiches. He would drink sparingly, he told himself. Just in case there was another torture session in store for him, he wanted his body to have as little material to soil itself with again as it could.

Leaning back gingerly, trying to find a position in which his back was supported without aggravating the burn, he stretched out his mind to see where Jace and the others were now.

*

The track had come to an end, and this time they didn't think that it had simply been washed away by magic worked nearby or any other sort of interference. This was it – they were reasonably sure of it.

The building looked like any of its neighbors at first glance – and at second, though Maia sat down by the large doors that looked like they should have slid open at anyone approaching.

The fact that they remained stubbornly closed was only the first thing to alert them that there was possibly more to this building than met the eye.

When they sent up the falcons once more, to circle and try to take a look through the windows to check out the interior, they found themselves faced with blank walls.

Through the birds' eyes, none of those windows existed, the façade smooth and unbroken. It matched the room that Alec was locked in, with its bare, uninterrupted walls.

The glamor that concealed the changes wasn’t easy to bypass, even once they knew it was there. It had to have been targeted at human – or at least sentient – minds, though, since the birds were looking right through it.

"We'll want all the backup we can get before we go in," Izzy determined, her phone out already.

Jace had covered the door in charms and runes alternatingly in the meantime, trying to get it to open for him. The door wasn't impressed, and a frustrated kick, though aimed strategically, brought no result at all.

"If you sprain your ankle with a stunt like that, you stay out here when we go in," his sister told him as he picked himself up from the ground.

He frowned at her darkly. "Alec just said something similar," he admitted.

 _Only vaguely_ , Alec's voice sounded by his ear. Even knowing that his _parabatai_ wasn't there, he had to make an effort not to turn and check.

Strictly speaking, he had just told Jace to get some distance between himself and the building. Alec didn't know how Lilith was planning to use Jace to revive Jonathan, but he didn't think her plans included Jace's continued well-being – or survival, for that matter.

 _Tell her I'm here_ , Jace thought back. _If that'll make her let us in, just tell her._

 _I'll do no such thing!_ Alec's mental voice sounded sharp. _Besides, I can't even reach her. She just locked me in again and left._

Charlie was approaching, fiddling with a ring that sat loosely on her finger.

"Auntie Jane gave this to me this morning. Not particularly graciously, but she did," the Bard said. "I should be able to get us in with it. It will negate all power it encounters once activated. I don't think whatever spells she has on that door will resist it."

"You still can't get to Alec through the Wood?" Izzy wanted to know.

The older woman shook her head. "It's as if I was trying to climb through a window without opening it first – it just doesn't work, and I haven't found the right tools to break the glass yet."

Jace was about to tell her to use the ring. It was Alec's voice in his head that stopped him.

"Alec wants to know how often you can use that," he relayed.

Charlie's lips twitched slightly. "Once. It needs to be recharged after each use and no – that is not something we can do here."

 _Tell her to save it unless there's definitely no other way_ , Alec said. _You might need it if you encounter her._

While Jace relayed the message, Magnus came walking into view around the corner of the building again. He had just completed a circuit to probe the magic around it.

Jace felt the overwhelming warmth of Alec's love in his mind as he laid eyes on the warlock.

"I can get in," Magnus announced. "It'll take time – a few hours probably – but I can get us in."

 

April 29th, 2017

It was about an hour past midnight when the door to his cell opened, the alarm he had placed once again drawing him back into his body. He was aware of the time because his friends were, and because he had spent more time in Jace's head watching Magnus work his magic while the others took turns guarding and resting than in his own body this night.

Magnus, too, had to take breaks now and then. Though the Gales boosted his magic, their powers were limited in New York, where they had no anchor to the land.

While charms kept him awake and alert, they weren't enough to keep his magic from running out.

Chris had offered him use of his own, and after some hesitation, Magnus had agreed, adding his student's power to his own as he deconstructed the spells laid on the building layer by layer.

Lilith either was busy elsewhere and hadn't noticed their work yet, or she didn't care.

The second, apparently, Alec realized when he jerked upright, the movement pulling on the burn on his back and jostling his still-broken fingers. His vision swam with tears of pain for a moment before he recognized the reason for his alarm going off.

The Demon Queen stood in the open door, frowning unhappily at him.

"Turn that off!" She ordered, doubtlessly referring to the whine of Alec's alarm.

It might not have been impossible to refuse the command, but it certainly would have cost him quite some energy. Besides, he wanted the noise to stop as well.

Scuttling forward on his knees, he wiped away the charms that had made sure that no one could enter the room unnoticed while his mind was busy elsewhere.

"Since when do your kind use magic?" Lilith asked.

"October last year," Alec replied truthfully. "And it's not magic." He had withdrawn to his corner again, unwilling to kneel by her feet.

Lilith gave no sign of what she thought of that. Instead, she raised a small, black object in her hand. "Explain this." Her voice was on the cold end of neutral.

"That's my phone," Alec pointed out. "It's quite attached."

She snorted, the sound nothing a human throat should have been able to produce. With a careless motion, she tossed the device into the room, where it clattered to the floor close to Alec.

"Call your brother," she told him. "Tell him to send the others away and to stand ready. I'll open the doors to him once they are gone."

"That'll never work," Alec told her. He made no movement to reach for his phone, even to check if it was undamaged. A Gale phone didn't break from a small drop like that. "He doesn’t command them. They'll never—" He broke off at Jace's elated yelp inside his head.

_Magnus did it! We're through!_

*

Magnus tried not to let his exhaustion show when he had finally untangled the spellwork on the building. It wasn't just that there was a lot of spells to work on, and that they were everywhere and interlaced with each other, so that pulling out the wrong thread of magic had the potential of causing disaster – it was also the sheer amount of power behind those workings. If he released the wrong end, the backlash could burn him from the face of the earth – and everyone near him, too.

Knowing that had been the one thing that had made him take breaks and refuel every now and then, though he had wanted nothing more than to keep working to clear their way to Alec. If, instead of opening a way into the building he ended up tearing a crater into New York that would potentially reach all the way to Edom, he'd end up dying in the knowledge that he had killed Alec instead of saving him – never mind everyone else in their posse and the mundanes within an area of a few blocks around them.

Every time he had looked up, the sun had been down farther; then, the sky had darkened as night had fallen, and he had continued to work according to the same pattern, feeling his magic slowly ebb as he proceeded.

This wasn't the sudden drain of a major working. It was a slow trickle, all the more treacherous for it because he ran a risk of not realizing how depleted he was until it was too late.

He was almost certain that Lilith knew they were there and that he was working on her protections. That she hadn't sent either some demon or another at them or struck out herself said something about how certain she felt that they didn't stand a chance of breaking in.

"I have it," Magnus said, glancing over his shoulder to where Izzy was sitting on a low wall, Clary next to her, dozing with her head on her friend's shoulder. Charlie sat cross-legged on the ground by their feet, picking a low tune on her guitar, Jack sitting across from her, watching and listening. Jace was prowling back and forth, seraph blade in hand. He was always in motion, unwilling or unable to sit down. He'd been calmer during the stretches that Alec had shared his mind.

Christopher and Sebastian were guarding their group, along with the Gale twins. They had taken over from Aline and Helen, Melissa and Elessar about half an hour ago. Hodge and Katie were resting, waiting for their own turn at guard duty that would be shared with Simon and Maia. The vampire had volunteered to fetch and carry, bringing in coffee, water and snacks at need, since his enhanced speed allowed him to travel across the city with only minimal time loss.

Everyone perked up at his words.

"I don't know how long I can hold it," he continued, truthfully. "Once the ward goes down and the doors open, we need to go in fast. And then…" He took a deep breath. "Then we'll be inside. And the wards will probably be between us and the outside again."

"Since we're not leaving without retrieving Alec and taking care of Lilith, it won't matter," Jace growled as he approached.


	25. Chapter 25

They spread through what had once served as the building's lobby, fanning out immediately to make space for those behind them.

Magnus had slipped in with them, unable to resist the urge to get close to Alec in spite of knowing that his magic would be low, and that his physical combat skills were sorely lacking by comparison with those of the others.

No one harbored any illusions that their entrance had remained unnoticed. They didn't even try to remain quiet, instead opting for greatest efficiency.

The wards had barely dropped into place again, when three dark shapes detached themselves from the walls, approaching them with slow, menacing gliding motions.

Izzy's whip shot out, catching one of them around the constriction in its outlines that was its neck.

While it was struggling, Jace and Clary sunk their blades into it from either side.

The other two were less quickly dispatched. One had sprouted ink-black double blades and lunged at the twins, engaging them in a battle that was quickly taking all their skill just to stay on their feet. Though large, the room still limited their movements, rendering them unable to shift position the way they would have liked to come to their aid.

Helen, the closest to them, slammed the edge of her blade diagonally across the shadow's back, drawing a line of oozing black that didn't seem to otherwise hinder it much.

The third had opted to use speed to improve its attacks, dashing forward and stabbing or slashing before retreating. Charlie had blocked one of its attacks physically with her guitar, leaving the instrument scored with a crack across the wood. She whistled a shrill tone, throwing the attacker several steps back.

Hodge was on top of it in an instant, the glamor of his left hand shooting forward to distract just before the barbed blade he had chosen for this day found the spot that ended the shadow demon's presence on this plane of existence.

The third fell to a bolt of light shooting from Jack's hands. The dragon had finally managed to maneuver himself into a position where he could throw a spell of his own.

"Up!" Magnus said, pointing at the door he was certain would lead to a staircase. "She wouldn't have sealed up the entire building if she'd planned to stay down here."

They moved, dashing forward and guarding, ready to face more demons any moment.

The sounds of rustling and a low, extended hiss from above told them that they wouldn't have to wait for long.

*

"Your friends are quite stubborn," Lilith noted.

Alec was standing motionless between his two demon guards, trying hard not to do anything that would cause either of them to touch him.

It wasn't about avoiding the renewed pain it would cause him. If he'd seen any use in making a move, he would have gladly dealt with the burns. But Jace was slowly fighting his way upstairs with the others, and both the sudden echo of a flare of pain and the shutting down of their bond were too likely going to be a distraction that could prove fatal.

With that in mind, he avoided the situation, acting the obedient hostage in spite of every fiber of his body screaming for him to find a way to escape and join the others. He tried hard not to wince every time Jace didn't manage to block a blow in time.

Any action on his part would have been useless anyway. He was still stark naked, without any weapons other than his bare body, and would have been nothing but a liability for them.

"I've heard them described that way before," he allowed, since she clearly waited for an answer.

"It's a pity," the Demon Queen noted. "All they needed to do was to send your brother up here. I would have let the others leave."

Strangely, he believed her. The only thing she was interested in, as far as he could tell, was returning Jonathan to some semblance of well-being. Anything that might happen to any of them on the way there was collateral damage she didn't mind, but that she didn't take any particular pleasure from either.

He wanted to check on Jace, but kept himself from doing so. Making contact at an inopportune moment and causing his _parabatai_ injury that way was a risk he wasn't willing to take.

As it was, he was as surprised as Lilith when the door burst open, admitting Jace, somewhat bloodied and with torn clothes, but with a determined expression and swinging his sword in figure-eights to guard. Izzy was right at his heels, with the rest of their miniature army just behind them.

At a gesture from Lilith, the two guards reached for Alec. He clamped down on the bond the moment he saw them move. Now that Jace could see him, he hopefully wouldn't fault him for sparing him the pain.

"I want you," Lilith said, her voice tense but even, her hand pointing at Jace. "The rest of you may still leave unharmed if they hurry. If you do not hand yourself over, _he_ dies." She nodded towards Alec at the last words.

"Jace, no!" Alec called out, the pain burning in his arms again from the searing hands gripping him tightly reflected in his voice. He didn't need their link open to know Jace had been about to step forward, disarm himself and throw himself at Lilith's mercy.

"Don't be stupid," Lilith advised. She raised her hands, power collecting around them. "You're in my grasp already. Why sacrifice everyone else if you can go alone?"

"We're in it together," Izzy declared, taking the last step forward that separated her from Jace. Clary hurried to join them on his other side.

The rest of the group moved up, spreading along the wall, always with an eye on the demons that held Alec.

Aware that all it would do was to make the burns and the accompanying agony worse, Alec fought hard not to struggle.

Then Lilith raised her hand, ready to throw what power she had gathered at the group.

Magnus was spreading his fingers in a counter-move just before Charlie reached for the ring on her hand, twisting the stone set in it.

It could have been his imagination, but for a moment, Alec could have sworn that he could see the ripple of power speed away from the focus of the gem in that ring, spreading and stripping the room of magic.

Two things happened then: First, Jace whipped out a dagger with his free hand and threw it at the right-hand demon in a single, fluid motion, while Sebastian and Chris raised twin crossbows and sunk two bolts into the left one.

Alec barely had the time to register the relief when the searing hands disintegrated from where they were locked around his upper arms. At the same time, he heard a scream so full of despair that it took him a moment to realize it had come from the Queen of Demons.

All thought of Jace or the others forgotten, Lilith sprang towards the bed, her hands flying in frantic motions in order to re-establish the stasis field, eaten along with every other bit of magic the room had held.

She never made it there. Twin containment spells shot from Magnus' and Jack's hands, catching and holding her from opposite sides of the room and anchoring her in place better than any single spell could have.

She roared, an inhuman sound of helpless fury mixed with raw anguish.

"You can't do that!" her voice was almost a shriek. "He'll die!"

"He's already dead," Jace observed as he approached Alec to sketch a healing charm onto his arms, sparing him the effort of moving his damaged hands for the purpose and making use of the added effect their _parabatai_ bond gave him.

It was Elessar who joined them and, from somewhere in the depths of a pocket in his trousers, pulled a garment that looked not unlike a bathrobe and that shouldn't have fit in there under any circumstances – and most certainly not without leaving an impressive bulge.

Alec only spent a moment wondering about it as the Seelie prince draped it over his shoulders, leaving it to him to thread his arms through the sleeves with the least discomfort to his fingers. _Pocket universe_ , he realized as the impossibly smooth fabric settled around his body. Of course – the ones they had received from their friends had been acquired by Joe, but he shouldn't have been surprised that Elessar had at least one of them integrated into his everyday wear.

That made him wonder if he had just put on the Seelie Prince's own robes, carried along in case he had to make an appearance at Court on short notice for which he couldn't show up in jeans or sports clothing – which were the only things he had seen on Elessar so far.

In the time it had taken him to cover himself to the point where Jace could close his belt for him, Chris had moved to the bed, looking down at his near-dead counterpart while Magnus and Jack were holding up their spells, sheens of sweat forming on their faces as they struggled to counter the Demon Queen's efforts.

After a moment's scrutiny of the ruin of Jonathan's face, Chris lowered his crossbow and drew his blade with his left hand.

"Don't kill him!" There was a pleading tone to Lilith's voice now, as her efforts to break free ceased momentarily. "Do what you want otherwise, but leave my son alive!"

*

Chris looked at her, then at the man he could have been, had decisions been made differently in the world he had grown up in. He suppressed a shudder. He didn't want to imagine being subjected to those burns. Jonathan must have lived in constant agony.

"Lilith…" he said, forcing his voice into an even tone, "I think this is one of those times where to love someone means to let him go."

She stared at him, defiance and refusal in her eyes. "He can live!" She insisted. "I can use the life of his killer to restore him!" Her eyes turned from him to Jace then, all the movement the twin spells on her afforded her.

"And what life will that be? Where will he live?" Chris asked her, still speaking calmly. "He has no place here. He can never have a place here after all he has done. He will be hunted by all. Will you return him to your home, for more torture of the kind he has already endured?"

"It wasn't my home!" she shot back, indignity at the thought radiating from her features. "I would have protected him if I could have!"

Chris was still standing over Jonathan, studying the motionless body and focusing on one of the special skills the demon blood share in his veins gave him: to see the life force of those around him and tell how close they were to death. There was a small spark lingering in Jonathan, stubbornly holding on even without the stasis field. He wasn't going to wake up, but he'd be a long time dying at this rate – too long to draw out their conversation. His hand tightened on the grip of his sword.

Before he could move beyond that, Lilith spoke again. "Valentine should have sent him to me when he realized he couldn't handle what he had created. Instead, he banished him to Edom and bound him there, to make sure he would not return to haunt him. By the time I knew what had happened… by the time I got to him… they had already started…re-shaping him."

"They?" Alec asked as he walked across the room in slow, measured steps, his hands held carefully before him. Jace remained at his side. They took position to Chris' left, while Sebastian had moved in on his right, all three of them staying half a step back and letting their friend continue the main conversation.

"The dwellers of Edom," Lilith clarified. "My power is great, but not absolute. I am one and they are many. I could not save him from their work. All I could—" She broke off, sadness and grief in her eyes that seemed entirely misplaced in a demon. "All I could do was to stay with him. Teach him. Take care of him as much as they let me."

"They call you the Queen of Edom," Magnus pointed out.

"A mocking title," Lilith insisted. "Maybe once I could have claimed the power to go with it. Maybe I could have broken him free then."

Her shoulders sagged as all fight seemed to leave her. "My powers may seem vast to you, but they're greatly diminished from what they were Before."

The way she said the last word told them there was more meaning behind it than they could know.

"He left Edom eventually," Jace pointed out. "He came here."

That brought a proud smile to her lips that she clamped down on quickly. "He figured it out on his own when I couldn't," she said. "And he went through with it on his own, never sharing his plans with anyone when he might have been overheard and stalled. He found one of us, banished and bound for so long his powers were barely diminished. Between him and his blood connection to this world, he managed to drag himself out of Edom."

"And what now?" Chris asked. "Will you take him home with you now?"

She shook her head, sadly. "I cannot. Valentine bound him to Edom. It is the only place he will return to out of this dimension."

"You say your power is still vast as compared to ours," Alec said. "Then how could you not counter Valentine's ban?"

"Because it wasn't Valentine's!" her retort came sharply. "He had _their_ support. He was using _their_ powers. _Their_ artifacts in the working. I cannot undo _their_ work."

Chris was still thinking about what to say when Alec picked up the conversation again. "The creatures we call angels?" he asked. "Who sometimes hunt and torture demons. Who would destroy us before they would allow us to understand what they are actually up to?"

Perplexed shock had her speechless for a moment.

"How do you know?" her voice was barely audible. "You're their creatures – how can you—"

"We've learned to think," Alec said. "And we've seen things. We're not playing their game anymore. We'll not be playing yours either. We will find our own way."

"They will destroy you."

Alec met her eyes with a level gaze. "Let them try."

"Don't overestimate yourself," Lilith cautioned. "You may think you know them, but you really don't."

"Funny," Alec returned. "We spent the last half year realizing that. But my point still stands."

Lilith's lips twitched as she returned her attention to Chris. "Who are you?" she asked. "I feel like I should know you." She still wasn't moving anything but her eyes, the containment spells undiminished. Since she had stopped struggling against them, however, Jack and Magnus had been holding them easily and were no longer looking as if they were trying to run a race without moving from their spots.

Chris took a deep breath. "I am Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern," he declared. "Under different circumstances."

She stared for a moment. Then her gaze turned introspective, as if probing something deep inside her. "You do share my blood," she said, wonder in her voice. "You'll have to tell me how you came to be… here…" Her eyes focused on him again. "You are not bound to a world. Will you take his place? Will you come with me?"

He shook his head. "I don't belong with you. I belong here, with these people. And I cannot allow Jonathan to continue."

"You are Jonathan," Lilith said.

"I am Christopher," he returned. "I am not he."

He wasn't sure which had been the moment when she had given up her quest to save Jonathan's life, but it had been there somewhere. "Let me say farewell to him… and then make it quick. Do not let him suffer any more."

Magnus and Jack glanced at Alec at her words, then at Chris. At two curt nods from them, they released the magic, though their hands remained raised to re-establish the spells at need.

Lilith closed the distance to the bed, her hands grasping one of Jonathan's, her thumb stroking his limp fingers. "Let go, my son," she said in a whisper. "Sleep, where you're safe and where you'll never suffer again."

Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against his forehead before straightening and stepping away.

Quick, she had said, and Chris gladly wanted to oblige. But the mixture of demon and angel blood in Jonathan's veins was stubborn, as he knew well. There was only one way he knew that would give certain, instant death – and it was a messy, unpleasant one.

Still, it had to be done, and he wasn't going to hand over the duty to any of the others.

At least the adamas blade was unlikely to catch on bone. Steeling his resolve, he stepped forward, raising his sword to gain momentum, and brought it down to sever Jonathan's head from his body in a single, powerful stroke.

*

There was, Alec thought, a surprisingly small amount of blood. Jonathan's heart had barely been beating anymore, his body kept alive by magic more than any biological processes. Instead of a fountain that would splatter the walls as the large arteries were severed, there was only a slow seepage quickly soaked up by the mattress beneath him.

"Thank you for helping me keep him alive."

Alec needed a moment to realize Lilith was talking to him. He stared at her, once again reminded how utterly alien her way of thinking was to them. Their ideas of right and wrong meant absolutely nothing to her, and there was no way he could begin to follow hers below the very surface.

"Your hands will heal," she noted.

"Yeah," Alec said, unsure of what else to respond. He would have liked to ask Magnus to put a proper healing spell on him before they left, but, seeing the fatigue on his boyfriend's face, resolved to refuse even if he offered. His fingers could wait until they were back in Calgary and Catarina could work her magic on him while Magnus refueled.

The Demon Queen raised her hand, power shining around it for a moment. Jack and Magnus snapped to full alert, fingers twitching already, but the flash was gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind a small glass vial held delicately between her fingertips.

Using one sharply pointed nail to score the skin on the inside of her forearm, she dripped a small amount of her blood, a red so dark it seemed black at first glance, into the vessel before sealing it with another drop of magic.

She held it out to Alec, who hesitated, unsure of what she was planning with it.

"When you are ready to learn the full truth," she said after a second's silence. "Follow my blood and find me. Some things cannot be told. They must be seen to be fully understood. When you do, bring my son."

Alec wished he could have said that the moment when he would do what she had just suggested would never come. Honest as he was, however, he couldn't do so even in his own mind. The opposite was far more likely. He reached out to gingerly take the vial from her between the three unbroken fingers of his left hand.

Without another word, and studiously avoiding any look at the remains of Jonathan, she turned, raising a portal at the moment she stepped forward.

_Alicante_

Lydia was at her desk when they came for her.

 _You should have taken Maryse’_ _advice and talked to the Redwoods_ , shot through her mind when she saw the team of four in her doorway. They hadn’t even bothered to knock.

Then she reminded herself of why she hadn’t. Anestis and Elizabeth Redwood may have been former Special Forces and surely were able to deal with whatever might be thrown their way, but their niece Tatyana was not – and she relied on her relatives’ continued safety for her own.

“Lydia Branwell?” one of the quartet asked.

“You know that,” she returned. “It says so on my office door.”

The woman in the door didn’t deign to react to her statement, acknowledging merely her confirmation of her identity.

“You are under arrest, Ms. Branwell,” she announced. “Please rise slowly and hand over your stele and blades.”

“On what grounds?” Lydia asked. She made no move to obey just yet.

“Breaking into an office and stealing documents, for one.” She approached, hand on the hilt of her blade. “Supporting and enabling a group of traitors.”

Lydia almost protested before she realized that the first charge at least would stand. She _had_ broken into Blackmark’s office and retrieved Jace’s medical file for him.

She stood, placing her stele on the desk before her. She wasn’t wearing a blade in the office. It hung on the side of her desk, where she’d left it. “For the record,” she said. “I deny the part about the traitors.”

Two of the group moved forward, each reaching for one of her arms to push her ahead of them. The fourth collected her weapon and stele.

Lydia made a brief attempt to shake them off. “No need for that. I’m coming.”

They didn’t let go.

“So you deny your association with the traitor cell around Alexander and Isabelle Lightwood?” The leader of the group asked. “You have been seen with them often. You were engaged to the young man even.”

“Briefly,” Lydia returned.

“He left you before the altar – for a _warlock_ , no less,” the woman pointed out. “Yet, you continued to be on friendly terms with him and his lot. If you mean to claim that you had no knowledge of their doings, you can tell the judge all about that. As far as I’m concerned – you’re as guilty as they are.”

“What did they even do?” Lydia asked, her mind going fast. This wasn’t about her foray into Blackmark’s office. It probably wasn’t even strictly about whatever Alec and the others had most recently done. She would have bet anything on it that this was connected to whatever it was that had been going on beneath the surface all along.

The woman who had previously spoken to her seemed ill-inclined to answer, but one of her companions apparently had a desire to hear himself speak.

“They deserted their post in New York and attempted to kill a fellow soldier who tried to stop them in the process. Lindsay Rosewood.”

Lydia snorted. She had met Lindsay during her time in the Institute, and she couldn’t quite imagine that potentially fatal force had to be applied to keep her from stopping a team like Alec’s.

“You sought out Maryse Lightwood recently,” the leader of the group took over again as they marched Lydia down the corridor, taking the route where they were most likely to be seen by many. “What were you discussing with her?”

“I was asking her advice,” Lydia returned. “I thought my office had been searched but I couldn’t prove it. I wanted to hear an uninvolved party’s opinion.”

“What did she tell you?”

Lydia thought quickly. She wasn’t going to say anything that would implicate anyone else. “She told me to report the incident to the proper authorities.”

“But you didn’t do that.”

“No.” Lydia agreed. “I didn’t.”

*

Maryse would have liked nothing better than to pour herself a stiff drink after her unbidden visitors had gone. Aware that her stomach still wasn’t quite behaving the way it should, she refrained.

She had just been informed that her three older children had explicitly been assigned the status of traitors and deserters. After Alec’s disappearance, it seemed that Jace, Isabelle and Clary had left the Institute – on a path as-yet unknown to anyone.

She’d expressed her regret at being unable to help, insisting that the only communication she had had with any of the four since they had left Alicante for their travels several months earlier had been to inform her that Alexander had gone missing.

“Do you truly expect us to believe this?” the man who had led her interrogation had demanded.

Maryse had met his eyes squarely. “Tell me,” she had asked in return, “if you were planning to do something illegal, would you tell your mother, of all people?”

He hadn’t answered that, but he hadn’t pursued the subject any further either.

All through the debate that followed, Maryse had prayed that the Gale phone in her pocket wouldn’t ring and give her away. Explaining a working cell phone in Idris would be just about impossible – and the string of messages going back and forth between her and her children on it would be a disaster for everyone involved.

“And you claim that you have not even tried to contact them on your own?” the man had asked.

“They are adults,” Maryse returned evenly. “I am not responsible for their actions, but I have another son. Max. He’s just a few months past his runing ceremony and was severely injured in his first weeks of service. He is still recovering. I was granted leave to take him to Idris and help him find a new place for himself in our community. You will understand that my focus is on that.”

Max, who was interning with Imogen Herondale in the inquisitor’s office now and would probably hear about his siblings’ new status there. She wasn’t looking forward to _that_ conversation either.

“And hasn’t he quite found it?”

“I think he has found a likely position, yes,” Maryse confirmed.

He gave her a look she found hard to place. “So would you say that you are ready to go back into the field?”

That wasn’t what she had expected. She forced herself to shrug. “I will go where ordered,” she claimed. “But Max is too young to be living all on his own. I would not want him to give up his internship, so I would have to request some time to find accommodation for him in Alicante.”

“You spent nearly a week out of the country recently.”

It was a statement, not a question, but Maryse decided to answer it as one anyway. “Running an errand for Inquisitor Herondale. Max stayed with her during that time. I cannot imagine she will want to keep him in her home permanently, though.”

In fact, if she had to leave Alicante, Imogen Herondale, who had adopted her children as her grandchildren in all but name, would have been her first choice as a guardian for Max. She didn’t think it wise to make it too obvious that she had already given that matter some thought, though.

“Will I be redeployed?” she asked instead.

“Probably not anytime soon.” He sounded almost regretful. “No Institute will want anyone with such a recent connection to a traitor group. I expect that you will keep yourself available to the ongoing investigations. You’d be wise not to leave the city.”

The city, not the country, she noticed. She wasn’t exactly put under house arrest, but she was certain that some sort of alarm would sound the moment she set foot outside of the walls of Alicante or went off the tracking grid. Luckily, she didn’t think she would have to do either.

They had left soon after that, apparently convinced that she couldn’t give them any help beyond what she had just told them. Withdrawing to her bedroom, she sat away from the window, typing out a quick message to her children to let them know about current developments. She’d committed to their cause months ago. She’d be their eyes and ears in Alicante now, making sure they were kept up to date on anything she could glean.

She’d just have to avoid any situation in which she might be questioned under the Truth Sword. If that happened, she could only hope that their new friends would be enough to keep them safe.

_Calgary_

“Thank you,” Alec told Catarina as he carefully flexed his hands. His fingers still felt a little sore, but they moved easily at his command.

He rose from the sofa in their living room. “I’ll be right back,” he told the others. “Just putting on some of my own clothes.”

And underwear, and charms bracelet, weapons and anything else he usually wore, but he didn’t need to state that explicitly. With the Seelie prince’s permission, he’d remained in Elessar’s court robes until his hands were fixed, sparing him the effort of retrieving his hands from the sleeves and fiddling with fresh clothes.

His eyes fell on the angelic power rune on his arm as the loose sleeve slid back to his elbow. The night to May Day was the night of Spring Ritual for the Gales. That night, he and Magnus would be officially anchoring Third Circle for the group, after their emergency takeover in fall. It was, he had been told, an even more powerful affair than that other Ritual – Spring was when the Gales’ power, based in fertility, was the greatest, and he would have to expect an even greater rush of energy to collect, bundle and send on to Allie, who used it as she saw fit to strengthen the family, keep the city in order and protect her own against anything that might threaten their safety.

Secretly, he was quite glad that, thanks to Magnus’ infertility, the two of them would never rise to Second Circle. He didn’t know if Katie had explained to Hodge about the specifics of Ritual yet, but he was certain she would do so before the next day.

Participating in an orgy with his friends and siblings was strange enough, though he had to admit it had quickly felt entirely natural to them the first time around, with everyone else treating it like nothing out of the ordinary and the power flowing and welding them together into a unity that would be harder to break than anything he had experienced before.

Participating in an orgy with his teacher present at the edge of his mind would be an entirely different level of strange.

Then, with a moment of shock, he realized that that might be precisely what would happen. Unless Hodge decided to declare a choice within the next twenty-four hours or so, he and Katie might still be classified in Third Circle.

He mentally shook his head at himself, aware only too well that all of those considerations served mainly one purpose: To keep his thoughts away from the fact that he didn’t even know if he – or any of them – would still be alive in time for Ritual.

They couldn’t wait another six months to have another major day of power – or even three for a lesser one – to hopefully mask a deruning. He would give up his runes, and thus his tie to the Angel, tomorrow, under the control of the Gale Aunties – and there was no one he could pray to for a successful result that avoided incurring Raziel’s wrath.


	26. Chapter 26

Epilogue

April 30th, 2017

_Calgary_

"Last chance to reconsider," Bea said when their group arrived, fixing Alec with a long, hard look.

He shook his head wordlessly. There was nothing to reconsider. This needed to be done, and he had to be the one taking the risk. Still, the thought that by tonight, he would be rune-less, that something that had been part of his identity for most of his life would be erased without a trace, weighed hard on him, even with all the accumulated knowledge of the last months.

Not knowing what the further consequences would be didn’t help.

The Aunties had taken position, along with Allie and Charlie. Those with the greatest power would do the largest share of the work.

David was there, his human shape barely contained. His eyes looked like black holes in his face, the immense antlers sprouting from his forehead another visible reminder that he was not quite human anymore. He almost looked like a representation of the Gales' god himself.

Across from him stood Jack, his glamor down and golden scales playing on his skin in the direct proximity of so much energy.

A loose outer circle was formed by the adult Gale women. They would help contain whatever happened, and throw up defenses at need. Hodge stood among them, blade in hand, as did Melissa's Seelie partner Elessar. The Gale men would have been far too explosive this close to each other a day before Ritual.

"What do I do?" Alec heard himself ask.

Bea pointed at a spot marked in chalk. "Stand there."

"Maybe sit or kneel there," Allie suggested. "We don't know how this will affect you, and you'll be closer to the ground if you faint."

Alec wanted to glare at her and object to the idea that he might faint from the removal of a few runes, but he thought better of it. They really didn't know that he wouldn't. Deruning wasn't easy on a Shadowhunter, and this wasn't a method that had ever, to his knowledge, been tried before.

He glanced at Hodge as he made his way to his assigned position. They had removed the circle rune from the man's neck, and he'd said it hadn't hurt in the least.

But that had been a deactivated rune, already in the process of fading…

Kneeling in the grass, he found that he was feeling like a prisoner presented for his execution. He shifted, changing his posture until he sat cross-legged. That was better.

"Do you need me out here?" Magnus asked. His words were directed at Bea, though his eyes were firmly on Alec.

The old woman shook her head. "We have the outer shields covered. Go and be with him if you want. In the worst case, a few meters distance more or less won't make a difference."

The worst case. The one where the wrath of the angel would descend upon them for what they were doing, one way or another.

Alec swallowed as he watched his boyfriend walk over and settle behind him, inviting him to lean back against the warm, steady presence.

A moment later, Jace knelt by his side, then Izzy came to join them on his other. There was his family, guarding him, protecting him if he ended up in a state in which he couldn't protect himself immediately.

"Ready?" he heard Bea say.

"Ready," he answered before he could decide that he wasn't, and realized only then that she probably hadn't spoken to him at all. Charlie started playing, her music collecting the power channeled by the assembled Gales.

Looking around, Alec could see David raise his head, sniffing the air in a way that was more stag than human. Could he smell the energy flung around? Did he smell something else on the wind? Something that wasn’t supposed to be here? Something with wings? Did angels smell like chicken?

He blamed his nerves for the last thought.

His magic vision bathed the park in a green shine that grew into a glow and then to a glare that came rushing at him, enveloping him, blinding him with green light.

Tuning it down as far as he could, he still could barely make out the outlines of Izzy and Jace next to him. He wanted to put his hand protectively on top of his _parabatai_ rune, but that would have meant letting go of Jace. He couldn't remember having reached for his brother and sister, and yet both his hands were grasping theirs now.

He closed his eyes against the light. Metaphysical as it was, the only thing he could see against his closed lids was the red caused by sunlight filtering through the thin skin.

It may have been his imagination getting the better of him, but Alec thought he felt the power wash over him, envelop him and rest on him like a second skin. There was a tingling in his runes, and again, he wasn't quite certain if it was real or something his mind was spinning up because it thought he had to feel _something_.

The park was eerily silent, apart from the music played on Charlie's guitar. The Gales were so used to working together that they didn't need verbal commands in a meld like the one they were practicing now. The non-Gales were guarding.

Was that the sound of a hoof stomping on the grass?

Was there a rush of wings in the air behind the tune?

He needed something else to focus on. Alec turned towards his _parabatai_ bond, strong as ever. Soon they would know if the _parabatai_ charm would hold up on its own, without the rune to boost it.

His siblings' hands tightened on his briefly, and he squeezed back. He was alright. His bond to Jace wasn't weakening. The experience wasn't painful.

In fact, as the tingling intensified, then subsided again, he felt better than he had in a long time. Better, he thought, than he remembered feeling ever before. Somehow, it felt as if a weight that had been pressing against his skin for so long that he had forgotten it was there had been lifted.

Taking a breath, he found to his amazement that the wind seemed to be determined to tell him all there was about the world around him. There was Izzy's perfume, Jace's aftershave, an entire bouquet of Magnus and love behind him, but also hints at other people around him, each separate and yet all together forming one entity that registered as _family_. All of that was overlaid on the background mix of the park, and a distinct note of power.

The sounds, too, were more acute than they had been, as if his hearing had gotten an extra boost beyond the regular Nephilim level. The park had come back to life around them.

The Gales were waiting for them to move.

He heard Izzy give a little gasp by his side, felt Jace release his hand.

The interruption of their physical contact did nothing to their bond, strong and steady. There was confusion in it, but also a strange flavor of joy.

And Magnus – the Gales had always said that they shared a Second Circle Bond, and while he had known they were right, he had never before felt it as keenly as he did now. Without any rune or charm to mark their union, he could feel Magnus' relief, as well as a hint of anger.

The latter made him frown. It wasn't directed at him, but at … he couldn't tell how he knew, but on some level of his awareness, he understood that Magus was displeased because the Aunties had just done something he didn't approve of. They had—

His eyes snapped open, and he weathered a moment of dizziness. The world around him had changed – the difference subtle, but impossible to deny. Colors were brighter, outlines sharper. Details came to focus when he looked at them, and for a moment he wondered if he would be able to see single grains of earth by Auntie Bea's feet if he focused on them. He could feel the people around him, the Seelie distinctly different from the rest of them. Clary and their friends stood in the circle of defense – the circle they hadn't needed and wouldn't need, because he was sure that there was no presence anywhere within the park and well beyond it that wasn't supposed to be there.

As he looked around, the outer circle turned, the signal that they could stop guarding given where he hadn't seen it.

In a single, smooth motion, he unfolded his long legs and rose, still marveling at the impressions. The power in the park was like a living thing, pulsating beneath him, around him – and right through him. He glanced at his arm, seeing bare skin marked with charms.

He had lost his runes, but he had gained something.

 _Nephilim,_ he thought. _Is this what it's like to be Nephilim_?

Bathing in the power he could now feel, he let that energy flow though him as it would, trusting that Magnus or one of the Aunties would stop him if he did anything wrong.

He felt it, a strange pressure building up in his shoulder blades and back. Not unlike the one he had felt during ritual last fall, when the enkeli runes on his body had put a stop to whatever had been trying to happen.

This time, there were no runes. He felt the energy flow through him, following his veins and then, as if there was some extension of his body he had never previously been aware of, continuing out and upwards.

The Gales looked mildly surprised as they took him in. The Shadowhunters suddenly stared.

He clamped down on the first thought that sprang to his mind. That was ridiculous.

Izzy and Jace had risen as well. A glance at them told him what Magnus had been unhappy about. The First Circle hadn't limited its ministrations to Alec. His brother and sister also stood bare of runes, shining with the power they took in from their surroundings.

Alec raised a hand to his face, covering his mouth at the sight of his sister, an impressive pair of shining, silvery-white wings rising above her shoulders and fanning out as if ready to carry her in flight any moment.

He turned just in time to see a similar pair of extra limbs unfold behind Jace.

Twisting around, he could see his own. They were strangely there yet not there. Focusing on them, he could feel them. Focusing on something else, they were gone from his perception, though apparently not from that of those around him. They seemed made of the same metaphysical substance as David's antlers – which probably meant they would solidify when he was channeling power, and disappear when he was not.

Testing his theory, he clamped down on the flow.

The wings faded, though they didn't disappear entirely.

Well, neither did the Gale males' antlers this close to ritual.

His newly enhanced senses had dulled as well, dropping almost down to their normal level. So it was the energy from the park, and not the lack of runes that had caused that?

Nothing, however, changed the feeling of freedom and relief that pervaded him.

So this.

This was what it was like to be Nephilim.

He sighed softly to himself as he realized one more thing:

Ready or not – it would soon be time for them to face the creatures that had made them. And they wouldn't be pleased.


	27. Chapter 27

Annex

I was going to have an example of a Gale Quilt here, but life happened and I didn't get around to sewing it. Consider this a placeholder!

 

Charlie's Playlist

 

Chapter 4: The Beatles: I've Just Seen a Face

Chapter 21: Rachel Platten: Fight Song

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Scirocco Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171594) by [greeniron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeniron/pseuds/greeniron)




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